


Rock and Roll and Best Friends

by sammyspreadyourwings



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Band Isn't Famous yet, Band as a Family, Bar fights, College, Communication, Coping, Domestic Fluff, Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, Family, Fluff, Gen, Harassment, Humor, Illnesses, Male Friendship, Modern Era, Moving In Together, Nightmares, Permanent Injury, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Rape/Non-con Elements, Real People as Characters, Recovery, Ridge Farm, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Sharing a Bed, Shenanigans, Soft Boys, Text Conversation, Time Skips, Touching, Trauma, Worried boys, almost non con, ask to tag, but like platonic - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-09-02 14:56:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16789195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammyspreadyourwings/pseuds/sammyspreadyourwings
Summary: Prior to their big break, the boys of Queen move in together. It goes about as well as you expect, they also don't have time for your toxic masculinity bs.I.e shenanigans and soft boys and personal growth all around.





	1. Move in day

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted soft platonic touching, and then I got a vague idea for a plot. So that'll be happening at some point, but if there's anything, in particular, you want to see scene wise, I'd be happy to consider writing it.  
> Mostly it's just an excuse to write soft Queen boys. We'll see where this goes.  
> I now have a queen specific blog, come talk to me at https://sammyspreadyourwings.tumblr.com/

It happens on one of Freddie’s bonding days, a Saturday that they don’t have a gig or any urgent coursework due. Brian leans against the wall and ignores the string of complaints from Roger. There’s no actual validity to them, they _all_ like these days. They make for good stories and they are friends as different as they are and as much as they argue.

Except they never start these things on time because someone is always late. Usually, it’s Freddie or Roger but today its John.

Freddie is worrying at his lip, and Brian fights against the urge to tell him to stop. They’ve stopped the mother hen jokes for the time being and he’s in no rush to renew them. Besides, John is only a few minutes late, so there’s nothing to worry about yet.

“Sorry, I’m late!”

Brian turns towards John, who is strolling their way. He looks smug and excited about something, it’s a Roger look and Brian has no idea how they’re all rubbing off on each other already; its only been three months since Smile 2.0 was finalized.

“There you are!” Freddie jumps up from his crouch.

Roger’s tirade has stopped, “what were you doing?”

John’s grin widens, “finding a solution!”

“A solution for what?” Fred asks.

There are no issues that he can think of, other than the things they can’t fix. Like no label supporting them or a reliable practice space. Although, they haven’t worked on the last one too much since they all know their current set by heart.

“You know how we don’t have a good space to rehearse?”

Brian raised an eyebrow, “yes?”

“Well,” John pulls out a neatly folded piece of paper, “look at this!”

There’s a minor scuffle for the paper, and Freddie comes away victorious. Brian is mostly impressed that the little slip survived and placed a hand on Roger’s head as the shorter man rubs his cheek which had apparently been elbowed.

Fred reads it and furrows his brow, “a three-bedroom flat?”

“Yes!”

Roger slips away to peer over Freddie’s shoulder. He whistles, “that’s a pretty high rent.”

“Not split four ways!” John is bouncing now.

Brian’s eyes widened, “the third room would be a band room… but is there enough space for the rooms to be split comfortably?”

John nods, “I managed to look inside, it’ll be like the dorms but it isn’t terrible.”

“And it has everything need, plus its near campus,” Fred says.

Roger looks excited, Brian realizes that it comes down to him and Freddie. He’s pretty sure Fred will say yes; he still lives with his parents and its easy enough to tell there’s friction, they all have parental friction. Brian doesn’t have any need to leave his current place, but it looks like everyone wants this. Also, if they do make it out of pubs then they’ll tour and that would be months of close quarters. It’s a good idea to learn now if that’s something the band could survive since its such low stakes right now.

The thought of the band failing makes him sick.

Roger is talking to Fred into it. Brian grabs the paper from Freddie finally, like John has said the rent split four ways was reasonable. It wasn’t much more expensive than the current place he lived in. The band room would be a significant improvement, at least he wouldn’t get complaints about his playing… complaints that were completely unfounded (Fred was a perfectionist after all).

The math supports it, although, sans Roger, he barely knows anything about his bandmates. Freddie sings, studies design and plans for a grand future. John plays bass and studies electrical engineering and stays in the band because for some unfathomable reason they’ve somehow formed an unbreakable bond. He doesn’t know their quirks or bad habits. His mother would say it’s a bad idea and that he should think about his more (she will when he calls her).

“Let’s give it a go,” Freddie says, “of course if Brian agrees?”

“We have to be unanimous,” Roger seconds.

“Big word there Roger,” John teases.

Roger squawks indignantly and jumps on John who stumbles into Freddie. Freddie flails and grabs Brian for support but instead yanks him down. They tumble on the ground and continue to scuffle like they were children. Passerbys look amused or horrified. For once, Brian doesn’t care about their opinions of him because he’s watching Roger wave his hands wildly at John who is keeping the drummer at bay by pushing him away by his face. Fred cries for them to stop as he’s the one who ended up on the bottom.

 _Yeah,_ Brian thinks, _this could be it._

Even if they don’t become the world famous Smile they’re hoping for, Brian wants these idiots in his life.

“Guess we’re moving in together,” Brian blurts.

Roger and John stop fighting in surprise Freddie wiggles his way to freedom.

“Then it’s settled,” Fred declares once he’s standing and can be properly dramatic.

“Yes,” Roger nods.

John gets the upper hand then, and shoves Roger away and then stumbles not so gracefully behind Freddie for protection. Brian and Roger help each other up. They’re standing in a circle, and Brian isn’t sure who brings them into a hug, but it’s nice. He knows they’re in this together now.

_Good._

* * *

The place was nice, Roger admits. Better than any of the drafty flats he’s lived in since starting uni. Perhaps on an even better note, he’ll be sharing the flat with friends rather than pleasant acquaintances. He’s sharing a room with Brian, too, which was the best happenstance for him and the band.

Freddie and John had partnered up almost as soon as the lease was signed. Roger didn’t mind even with as much fun as he could have with Fred as a roommate and how respectful John would be. Brian is who he would have chosen either way.

Although, they were having a bit of a spat at the moment over how they wanted to set up the furniture in the room.

“I just think it’s more practical to have our beds separated by desks. It’ll give us our own space,” Brian argues.

“I’ve always been told don’t sleep where you work,” Roger retorts.

“And if we argue? One of us will have to leave the room.”

Roger rolls his eyes, “so we don’t fight.”

Freddie snickers from the hallway. Brian raises his eyes skyward.

“What?”

“You must have as well said you’re giving up sleeping around or drinking, darling,” Fred laughs.

Roger pouts at Brian, _see what you’ve started._ He opens the door wider to reveal the lurking Fred. He’s dressed in subdued clothing, for once. It’s a little bizarre but endearing, Roger has trouble sometimes figuring out where stage Freddie starts.

“I could give those up,” Roger counters, “but that would take the fun out of things.”

Fred grins, “but not the arguing?”

That gets a snort from Brian. Roger turns around and narrows his eyes, _traitor._

“Well, Deaky and I have our furniture sorted. We’re making lunch now.”

Roger looks at the stack of boxes and haphazard collection of furniture. He feels guilty for wasting so much time arguing. Brian wasted the same amount of time because he argued back, so Roger’s guilt isn’t overwhelming. He supposes it’s part of the reason that his former flatmates didn’t mind seeing him go.

“Let’s try your way, yeah?” Brian says once Freddie saunters away, “ it's not like it’s permanent. We can change it if we really don’t like it.”

“You’ve got a point,” Roger replies.

“But first, food.”

Roger is grateful for Brian. All four of them are stubborn, but unlike his prior flatmates, they want this to work. It seems like Brian is the best at compromising in the group after John, and Roger is fairly certain that it’s a toss-up between him and Fred on any given day who will out-stubborn the other.

“Sounds good.”

They hurry towards the kitchen before their bandmates eat what little food they’ve managed to gather pre-move completion. Roger knows that Fred and himself live off of instant foods, but Fred lived at home so he managed to bring some of his mother’s cooking. Deaky had a lot of snack foods and a couple of condiments. Brian was the true savior, unsurprisingly, as he had actual food even if most of it was vegetarian.

There’s a plate of sandwiches on the counter. Fred and John are arguing over which tea to make, he laughs as Fred snatches the box away. Roger grabs what he assumes is a turkey sandwich for himself and one of the meatless ones for Brian. Meanwhile, Brian is filling up reusable water bottles. They swap bounties once they settle near the table. The chairs are currently misplaced or otherwise have boxes stacked on them.

John regains his box, “do you even know how to use the kettle?”

Fred blinks, “no.”

John smugly bumps Fred out of the way and sets to make his tea. Roger ducks his head into his sandwich when Fred shoots him a look after he snorts.

“Wait,” he says, “can any of us actually cook?”

Fred shakes his head.

“Nothing fancy,” John says after a few seconds.

“Only vegetarian dishes,” Brian replies.

Fred sways back and leans against the counter, “looks like Brian and John are the cooks.”

“Fred and I can clean,” Roger offers.

Brian frowns at him, “you really can’t cook?”

“I’m absolutely horrid at it. I burn everything.”

“How?”

“Not sure,” Roger shrugs.

Fred rolls his eyes. Roger can almost feel the slight forming and he bristles in response. Brian reaches over and places a hand on his shoulder, and the moment of tension passes. John turns around confused.

Unsure of how long the truce will last, Roger grabs a plate from a nearby box and fills it. He then b-lines back to his room without a second glance. Brian joins him several minutes later.

“You okay?”

“Just didn’t want to hear Fred rag on me because I can’t cook when he can’t either.”

Brian nods and settles on the floor next to him, “you grabbed non-meat ones.”

Roger looks down and surprisingly it’s proportioned fairly evenly between meat and vegetarian.

“Well, kind of expected you to follow,” Roger says even though he hadn’t actively thought that, “might be a problem.”

“How so?”

“Party lines in the band, if there’s a fight the band is going to be split.”

“True,” Brian tilts his head, “we should make rules stating that you can’t take sides in a conflict or draw someone in if it doesn’t directly affect them.”

“Maybe, although that doesn’t stop tensions.”

“There’s only four of us,” Brian says a little softly, “you and I have known each other for years, so it makes sense that Freddie and John bond.”

Roger chews quietly, “maybe our rooms should have been different.”

“You _want_ to fight with Freddie every day? And John’s system of organization doesn’t match either of ours.”

“So you’re saying we’re well matched?” Roger laughs.

“Just think about the arguments I’ve saved you from!”

“How philanthropic.”

Brian leans back, “ooh, big word. Now spell it.”

Roger chucks a nearby pillow at Brian’s head. Brian ducks it and flings it back. He sets the plates on the empty desk behind him and then lunges at Brian who didn’t manage to get out of the way in time. They’re still rolling around on the ground when Freddie walks past.

“At this rate, your room will never be finished.”

Roger just laughs.


	2. Study and Struggles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo. So now updates are going to be slower because it's December in about 3 hours and I have a mixture of finals and my own challenge! Enjoy.

They’re a month into the school year and living together. So far only two plates, a glass, and a pair of drumsticks have fallen victim to Roger’s tantrums. He’s fairly impressed with himself, but Freddie keeps nagging him about controlling his temper, and while he hasn’t said anything John seems to agree. Brian doesn’t outright defend him but comments that during Tim’s tenure four pairs of drumsticks became casualties in their first month of Smile. Roger knows that he has a temper, and he’s working on it, but he would have thought that Brian would have been more obviously in his corner.

He’s hiding in his room from another argument with Freddie about leaving his skin products all over the bathroom, and instead of throwing things at the singer Roger took the path of less resistance saying that he needs to study.

The semester is kicking their collective asses, which means fuses are just a little shorter. John has excellent study habits but can’t take tests to save his life so he’s usually in a foul mood on exam days. Brian is in a constant state of stress from his lessons, Roger knows because he got a 23-minute lecture when he borrowed a notebook when he couldn’t find his. Fred is the only one not in a school-related slump because despite being a bad student he’s somehow making the marks he needs.

Roger sort of hates them all because he’s the one whose most obviously struggling. Studying is boring and a challenge, but if he doesn’t then he fails his tests. Even when he does manage to study what he deems an appropriate amount, none of the material sinks in and he still does poorly. He lets out a long groan as he slides to the floor. The ceiling is covered in a mix between space and music stickers and he begs the eighth note to send him a lifeline.

“You okay, Rog?” Brian leans over him.

He tense before he lets out a long breath, “I have a test in two days and I only have half the bones in the skull memorized.”

“There’s not that many?”

Roger glares at him.

“Sorry,” Brian raises his hands, “genuine question. How can I help?”

“How do you memorize all your space dust facts?”

Brian pulls a face, “I rewrite my notes, and there’s a lot to space dust.”

Roger flops his arm over his face, “I’m gonna fail.”

He hears the shifting of fabric behind him and he assumes that Brian is leaving him to his misery or grabbing his camera to commemorate this moment.

“Is the test just on the skull?”

“Yeah.”

A warm hand grabs his arm and pulls it off of his face. Brian is holding his notebook, and Roger can barely make out the differently drawn skulls on the page. He raises an eyebrow.

“Let me help?” Brian asks softly.

Roger tilts his head, “you rewriting my notes don’t exactly help me.”

Brian shakes his head and settles on the floor next to him, “how’d you learn to play drums?”

“Brian,” he whines, “I really do have to study.”

Brian raises an eyebrow and gestures to his current position of laying on the floor. Roger raises an eyebrow back.

“I have a point, trust me.”

Damn those two words.

“Fine.”

“So?”

Roger looks back at the ceiling and finds the treble clef, “muscle memory and sound mostly, once I what I need to do.”

Brian shifts and Roger sees a flicker of surprise, “seriously, you learned by ear?”

“Didn’t really need to read music until I was writing my own,” Roger shrugs.

“I don’t know whether to be impressed or jealous,” Brian moves so that he’s once again leaning over Roger, but he hasn’t stood up, “I got it.”

He gestures to Roger to sit up. Roger does so grudgingly, the floor was just getting comfortable and once he’s fully settled he pulls a face at Brian who laughs once and then his face settles into his “focus face.” The notebook is at Brian’s side, but carefully out of his readability range.

“We’re going to make this about rhythm.”

Roger tilts his head. Then Brian taps his forehead, he’s surprised for a second until Brian repeats the action.

“What’s this?”

“Frontal bone.”

There’s a quick glance to the notebook, “okay, and here?”

“Sphenoid,” Roger repeats after a second tap on the side of his head.

Brian reaches around and taps the back of his head, “parietal.”

Roger’s eyes widen, “the bones are beats!”

“We’ll learn the sections of the bones four at a time, it’s a four count.”

They spend the next hour working through his list. By the time they reach the bottom Roger’s got most of them memorized and can keep the rhythm that he an Brian invented halfway through. Brian is also letting him id the bones by tapping on his face similar to how he instructed Roger.

“Dinner’s ready,” John says, “and what are you two doing?”

Roger doesn’t think John actually cares judging by his tone, “studying.”

John shrugs and leaves. Roger pouts after the bassist’s back, “I can never tell if he’s mad at me.”

“You’re not a guitarist,” Brian says simply.

Roger frowns.

Brian leans back on his palms, “did you want to go get food?”

“Not hungry,” Roger answers. Really, he just doesn’t want to deal with Freddie at the moment.

Brian nods and then he lays on his back. Roger mimics the position and their socked feet press and kick at each other while a sense of stillness fills the room. His anxiety about the test is significantly lessened since he actually knows the names of the bones and he can place them on the diagram. There’s no stress from Brian about his classes for once and Roger sinks in the feeling.

This is what he wanted when the band moved in together.

* * *

John unlocks the door quietly despite it being early afternoon. The second he crosses the threshold he hears a violently hit cymbal and then Freddie’s voice rise in volume. He sighs, when they moved in together he expected noise, but sometimes it got a little too much.

“What are Fred and Roger on about now?” John asks as he turns the corner into the kitchen.

He blinks when Roger looks up from one of his textbooks. His pen is tapping on the counter in the weird habit he picked up a couple of weeks ago.

“Fred and Brian?” John amends.

Roger nods, “they’re either still fighting about a song-“

Loud and out of tune guitar strumming fills the hallway.

“Or they’re trying to learn new instruments.”

John hangs his keys on the holder and moves to sit across from Roger. He’s surprised that the other is so openly studying while the fight continues. There’s a particularly loud yell and John winces in sympathy.

“What song?”

Roger taps the pen three times before he writes the next word in his notes, “not sure, I think Fred wanted Brian to help him polish before he played it for us.”

The guitar gets strummed again and John frowns, “what about the song is wrong?”

“Not sure. From what I gathered Brian isn’t playing it right. Fred wants it more of a da da da du da but Brian keeps playing it da da da da du, or something.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I guess Fred’s way sounds better with vocals, but Brian’s way is supposed to be better for his solo.”

“Who do you think has it right?” John steals a grape from Roger’s bowl.

Roger swats at him, “depends. I haven’t got a chance to play it, so I don’t know what’s going to sound better. They’re both technically right and it sounds good either way.”

“Should we go help them sort it out?”

Three thuds echo suddenly after another round of viciously off-tune guitar playing. John laughs at Roger’s mournful face at the sound of his drums being abused. The volume of the argument picks up again.

“So long as they don’t break my drums, I don’t particularly want to get involved in that spat,” Roger looks at the clock on the wall, “they’ve been fighting about it for two hours.”

John steals another grape, “want to go out and bring dinner back. Give them a chance to fight it out?”

Roger closes his textbook, “that little Chinese place a couple of blocks away?”

John turns and grabs his keys.

“Should we ask them for their order?” Roger tilts his head.

“They get the same thing every time, we just ate there on Monday.”

Roger laughs and then speeds up after another bought of yelling. He looks worried.

“They’ll be fine,” John says, he’s not particularly inclined to be asked about his preference in the song, “we should probably get used to it now.”

For a few minutes, they walk in silence. John is happy, the house is noisy but Brian and Fred were making it just a little too loud. He’s always been the type to enjoy noise over making it, it’s why he’s been interested in music his entire life and it’s a good change from his previous roommate who only spoke when spoken too. Roger nudges him slightly. John glances at him, confused.

Roger isn’t looking at him. He ducks his head slightly and then nudges Roger back. They push at each other the entire way to the restaurant. The lady behind the counter smiles warmly at them.

“Back so soon?”

“Well, y’know,” Roger answers.

John snorts, “well put. If only we had four people in the house that could cook.”

“Hey, I’ve tried. Remember Saturday morning?”

He grimaces at the memory. It took the four of them a considerable amount of time to scrape the remnants of what Roger claimed to be an omelet from the bottom of the pan. Brian had immediately banned Roger from cooking again unless he bought his own set of cook wear, which was probably never going to happen. Also, Fred had laughed himself blue at the scene.

“How are you and Fred getting on?” John asks suddenly.

Roger looks up from the napkin he was trying to fold into a crane, “well enough.”

“You’re always fighting.”

A shrug, “it’s hard to explain. We didn’t fight this much before we moved in together. I didn’t think he’d laugh _every_ time I failed at a task.”

“He does do that a lot doesn’t he,” John hums, “there are no other problems?”

“None,” Roger crumples the napkins, “we’re fine up until he does something like that.”

John makes a note to talk to Freddie about it. Apparently, Roger is touchy about being laughed at (which John figures is valid) and Freddie really the only one that’s been poking at it. To be fair, it is easy to laugh at Roger. He tilts his head, there are plenty of other things that Fred could pick on so he’s sure it isn’t going to cause a problem.

Their food is bagged a few minutes later.

“Hey, John,” Roger says when they’re about halfway home.

“Hm?”

“How are you liking living with the band?”

“It's nice,” John glances to their building, “but we haven’t got much done but settle arguments.”

“Do you think it was a bad idea?”

John bumps against Roger, “no. We’re just…working out the chords as it were. I honestly wouldn’t want to live with anyone else.”

Roger shoves against him gently he looks a little forlorn.

“Besides, who else is going to put up with your drumming at 3 am?”

“I wasn’t even playing loudly!” Roger gasps.

“I was awake,” John shrugs.

“Sorry.”

“No,” John presses against him, “I like the noise.”

Roger snorts.  
“Seriously, though, I am happy to be living with you _all_.”

Roger finally grins, “we’re pretty great, aren’t we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said if there's a scenario you guys want to see, let me know or if you have a time period preference e.g modern or 70s let me know. Otherwise, hope you enjoyed and leave your thoughts below!  
> Uh next is going to be Fred and Roger talking it out


	3. Kitties and Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've officially checked out for the semester, so I wrote this instead of my essay due this week.

Freddie pads softly through the flat. Brian is composing in the band room judging by the continuous start and stop of the guitar. John is cooking supper, the flat is filled with the smell of stew. Roger is the only one currently unaccounted for, Freddie has just been in the kitchen and there’s no singing or drumming, so he isn’t with Brian. That means Roger either isn’t home or his in his bedroom.

The door to Roger’s bedroom is open so Freddie peaks around the corner, surprised to find Roger sprawled across his bed. He thinks the drummer is sleeping until Roger’s blue eyes meet his.

“Need something?” Roger asks.

Freddie notes the bland tone and admits that Deaky was right. He did need to talk to Roger.

“Not particularly,” Fred says as he walks into the room.

Roger raises an eyebrow but otherwise remains quiet. He rolls onto his side when Fred sits down on the bed, but the settles back on his stomach.

“We don’t talk much anymore,” Fred remarks, “and when we do, it’s usually in a spat.

Roger hums.

Fred frowns. Roger turns away from him when he doesn’t say anything for a minute. There’s a half-empty page precariously balanced on the edge of the bed, it’s a few sentences but most of it hastily drawn staffs and notated drum rhythms.

“Working on something?” Fred asks quietly.

“Yeah,” Roger answers, “might be decent.”

He turns on the bed and notes Roger’s blond hair hanging loose. Fred’s never been good at having serious conversations without fiddling with something. It reminds him of braiding Kash’s hair when they were younger. Carefully he picks up a strand near the crown of his head, Roger makes a questioning sound but doesn’t stop him. Freddie splits the strand apart and begins twisting it neatly.

They sit in silence for several minutes. Roger’s eyes drift closed, Freddie can tell he’s awake but barely.

“I’m sorry, you know.”

Roger cracks one eye open, “for what?”

“I haven’t been fair to you, and my teasing may have gone too far.”

Roger is quiet, and Fred takes advantage of it to gather more hair for the braid. It’s turned into more of a full French braid rather than the individual strands he planned on originally. Unsurprisingly, Roger looks stunning and Fred takes a moment to bemoan how unfair it is that a man is that pretty.

“Okay,” Roger decides on.

“Okay?”

“Hmm,” Roger’s eye slides closed again, “okay.”

“We’re fine then?”

“Yeah.”

Fred truthfully had thought that the conversation would have involved more yelling or arguing. Although he supposes Brian wouldn’t have been as close to Roger as he is if every conflict was made an issue of. He finished the braid and looks around for anything to tie it off with. There’s a hair tie on the nightstand and Fred reaches over for it. It’s brightly colored and Fred doubts that it’s actually Roger’s and probably from one of his one-night stands.

The drummer has fallen asleep. Fred tosses a blanket over him and leaves the room as quietly as he can. He bumps into John in the hallway.

“You and Rog talk?”

Fred nods, “everything seems to be sorted. He’s asleep now.”

John looks towards the bedroom, “dinner is finished.”

Brian takes that moment to walk out of the band room, “why is everyone hanging around my bedroom? What did Roger do now?”

John snorts and Fred laughs.

“Nothing, Darling,” Fred replies, “dinner is ready.”

* * *

“Fred, what’s in your coat?”

Freddie shoves the small buddle deeper into his jacket. He hadn’t expected to run into one of his flatmates before arriving at said flat. Brian has an eyebrow raised, briefly Fred wonders if the look was mastered because of Roger or if it was inherited, he hopes it’s the former because Brian’s parents are visiting this weekend and it would be more comforting to know that he won’t have to see the look with three times the potency.

“Fred?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s moving.”

Fred winces, “fine, you’ve found me out.”

He unzips the jacket and a small tabby pops his head out. Fred coos as the kitten’s ear flips back to its usual upright position. When he looks up to gauge Brian’s reaction he sees that there’s a slight smile playing on his lips, but then his face turns serious.

“What are you going to do with it?”

Fred looks at him blandly, _are you serious?_

“You can’t keep it! We don’t have the-”

The kitten mewls and it cuts Brian off mid-rant. Freddie absently scratches its head.

“Fred.”

“He’s alone, and it’s cold! I won’t make anyone spend their money on him!”

Brian frowns, “you don’t live alone, you have to keep us in mind. What if Roger or John are allergic?”

Fred tilts his head and thinks if either of his bandmates has told them their allergies, “John told me about his childhood pets… so does that mean Roger is allergic?”

He won’t endanger one of his bandmates if that’s the case despite how cute the kitten is.

“He isn’t,” Brian replies almost instantly, “but why would you think I would know that?”

“Because you do,” Fred replies turning the raised eyebrow look back at Brian, “you two are attached at the hip. His mother sends you care packages as well.”

“Whatever,” Brian snorts, “the others still have to agree.”

The kitten squirms out of Fred’s jack and towards his throat. Brian rolls his eyes which makes Fred grin because he realizes that Brian is his ally in this because he loves all animals. Especially when they’re small and helpless.

“He is pretty young.”

Fred nods, “now you see why I couldn’t just leave him in that box! Poor thing wouldn’t make it through the night.”

They walk in silences after that. The kitten was back inside of the jacket, sleeping soundly. Fred tightens his grip slightly when they enter the flat. It’s quiet, which is strange because both John and Roger are supposed to be home by now. Brian shrugs and wanders towards the living room.

John greets them with a nod. He’s laid flat on his stomach with a textbook open in front of him. Roger is on top of him, somehow snoring in tune with the song coming from the radio.

“He’s crushing me,” John says mildly and flips a page.

Brian sends John a sympathetic look, but there’s a little wistfulness to the gaze. Freddie settles the kitten back into his arms when it tries to wiggle away and explores.

“He does that.”

“Roger is going through withdrawals,” Freddie chuckles, “Brian’s been falling asleep on the couch because he’s staying up too late studying.”

“We don’t cuddle in our sleep,” Brian retorts.

“No, just before you sleep and as soon as you wake up,” John turns another page.

Fred continues, “also when one of them settles down for long enough.”

“Roger’s tactile,” Brian says with no heat, “besides, he does the same to you two.”

Truthfully, Fred enjoys Roger’s touchy nature, he himself thrives off of human contact. The constant touching has been good at bringing John out of his shell, John wouldn’t have allowed for Roger to sleep on him six months ago. It also manages to pull Brian out of his head, although Fred isn’t entirely sure that it’s not just Roger’s presence that does that. Mary has even remarked that the band seems to have gotten very close after the move-in. He thinks they work more smoothly.

“Anyway, Fred’s brought a cat home.”

“What?” John tears his eyes away from the book.

Fred sends Brian an annoyed look, and that’s the exact moment Roger wakes up. His eyes look a little dazed from being awoken abruptly.

“Whas goin’ on?” Roger slurs.

“Freddie has a cat,” John answers.

“Oh,” Roger says as his eyes slip closed, “kay.”

“Sugar crash,” John says when he sees Brian’s worried look.

“How much did he have?” Brian moves around the sofa.

John shrugs, “not sure. He was already in his rush when I got back.”

“That _is_ odd for him,” Freddie concedes, “can I keep the cat?”

“Your problem.”

“Hear that Romeo?” Fred lifts the tiny kitten up, “you can stay!”

“You already gave him a name?” Brian asks.

His outburst wakes Roger up again. Brian takes advantage of Roger not being a dead weight and lifts him from Deaky’s back. Roger pretty much slumps against Brian but John quickly gets to his feet and twists his back looking relieved.

“I haven’t been able to move in two hours.”

Fred doesn’t point out that Roger isn’t exactly heavy and could have probably woken him enough to get him into a more convenient cuddle position. Brian manages to get a system between him and Roger to head back to their bedroom. Once the two have gone, John moves to take a closer look at Romeo.

“Hm, cute.”

“The cutest,” Freddie cheers.

They move to the kitchen where John pulls out a bowl and pours a small amount of milk into it before he sets it onto the ground. Freddie sets Romeo down. The kitten doesn’t move but instead fluffs up at the chair leg. Gently Freddie guides him to the bowl, Romeo steps in it but begins to lap at the dairy.

“It’s good he’s eating,” John remarks, “means he isn’t sick.”

“I’ll take him to the vet and get him things tomorrow.”

John shrugs, “like I said, your problem.”

Fred plays with Romeo quietly for a few moments when John speaks again, “do you think I should cook for four tonight?”

“Roger can always heat it up later if he misses dinner.”

John hums at that and starts digging out ingredients. Fred stands up to lean against the counter, “do you think there’s something wrong with him?”

“Roger? Always.”

Fred snorts but then purses his lips, “I mean something serious, he’s acting weird.”

“It might just be how he acts at home,” John shrugs putting a pot of water to boil, “Brian would probably know.”

Brian returns to the kitchen several minutes later just as John is putting pasta in the boiling water. Romeo is asleep on Fred’s lap as he sits on one of the dining room chairs.

“How’s Roger?”

“Asleep,” Brian replies.

John turns from the stove, “is he usually like this?”

“He doesn’t usually sleep this much.”

Fred tilts his head, “do you think he could be getting sick?”

“It’s possible,” Brian says, “I hope not. He’s miserable to be around when he’s sick.”

Fred hums. It doesn’t surprise him that Roger would be just as large a drama queen while he’s sick as when he’s healthy. Although it is worrisome if Roger comes down with something Brian is likely going to catch it. They’re going to be performing more frequently starting after next week now that John’s worked out several bars that are good to work with and won’t complain too much about the noise, the last thing they need is one of their band members sick much less two of them.

Brian glances back to the bedroom with a clear look of worry and Freddie for once can’t bring himself to make fun of Brian’s constant mother-henning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave your thoughts below, and I promise plot comes in the next chapter! Also my questions still stand about if there's anything people want to see or preference on timelines!


	4. Sofas and Bad Nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Squicky scenes are properly marked and skippable, also it's not actual non-con because the act was stopped but it just took prompting so I figure better safe than sorry tagging wise. Let me know if you need anything else tagged! Oh and I've decided it's the modern era, because I want it to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND Plot.  
> Okay last update for a bit while I focus on finals and actually finalize the plot.

Brian listens as the random beats from Roger’s bongos ended. The drummer had been working out a new beat for their current project claiming that the current one was dull to play. Honestly, Brian is just happy that Roger was doing something other than sleeping. He turns the page of the book he was reading, with Freddie at his parents and John at a study group he could read in the living room.

Even if Roger’s bongos ruined the quiet. At least it wasn’t just noise to be noisy.

Roger sets the bongos to the side, “Bri, mm cold.” 

“Well, you could wear something other than a t-shirt and boxer shorts.”

“Then I wouldn’t be comfy.”

“Are you comfy if you’re complaining about being cold?”

Roger slicks his tongue out. Brian ignores him and returns his attention to the book. The TV turns on and Brian flattens onto his back.

“Oh! Bri! Clockwork Orange is playing!”

Brian smiles to himself at the excited note in Roger’s voice. Roger stands and Brian realizes what is about to happen and barely has time to lift his book out of the way.

“Oof.”

Roger tugs the throw blanket over them. Brian winces as knees and elbows dig into him as Roger settles down. After a couple of minutes, they’re equally comfortable. Brian’s book is snatched and dropped to the floor.

“I was reading that.”

Roger grins, “no schoolwork allowed.”

“It was for pleasure,” Brian sighs.

“You can’t read history for fun!”

“Says the person who doesn’t read.”

“I read!” Roger almost looks offended, “I’ve read to you! From my textbooks!”

Brian pats him on the head. Roger turns away to watch the movie. With nothing else to do, Brian also focuses on the film. His hands mindlessly rub up and down Roger’s back. He feels Roger relax but to his surprise, the drummer doesn’t fall asleep.

“Feeling better?”

Roger purses his lips and tilts his head, “what do you mean?”

“We thought you might be coming down with something,” Brian answers, “you were sleeping a lot.”

“Oh,” Roger faces him, “sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Brian gently flicks Roger’s ear.

“Hey!”

“Still, I’m glad you seem better.”

“It wasn’t that I was getting sick-”

Brian hums and starts to scratch Roger’s scalp, he can feel the agitation run down Roger’s body.

“Just. This time of year, makes me moody, and I just kind of sleep it off? So, people don’t have to deal with it.”

He wants to tease Roger about being moody the rest of the year, but this doesn’t feel like the time, “you could have told us.”

Roger shakes his head. The rejection stings, but Brian knows that Roger is private about the weirdest things.

“Okay. Is there anything we need to do?”

“No. Winter always just always makes me not want to do things.”

Brian’s hand drops down and resumes rubbing Roger’s back, “you’ll be able to perform next week?”

“Course!”

“Okay.”

They fall silent and just relax together. Roger’s attention eventually returns to the movie they’ve both seen a hundred times. Once Clockwork Orange ends they end up messing with each other more than paying attention to the next two movies that play. Brian’s back eventually begins to spasm.

“Up,” he says, “I need to stand.”

Roger pouts but rolls off to the other side of the sofa. Brian stands and grimaces at the sound his back makes. He’s stiff and knows he needs to stand for a while before he settles back down so he heads towards the kitchen.  
“Where are you going?” Roger’s head pops up.

“I’m hungry.”

“Bring me something!”

Brian rolls his eyes at the demand but agrees. It’s nice to have Roger act like his usual self and Brian is unwilling to ruin the mood especially when they’re only a week away from their first gig in months. Besides, he was already going to make Roger food because he knows that the drummer hasn’t eaten anything all day and would likely continue the trend.

Several minutes later he returns to the main room with two bowls of leftover soup Fred’s mom made. Roger is cocooned in the blanket now but slips his arms free to make grabby hands for the bowl.

“So you’ve stolen the blanket?”

“I’m still cold, and you left.”

They eat in silence and as soon as he’s done Brian reaches down to grab his book and set it on the table. Roger finishes shortly after that and as soon as his bowl is safely on the coffee table, Brian is dragging Roger back against his chest. The blanket gets pinned between them and Roger starts to tug at it to get it back which starts a minor scuffle.

“If you rip it, Freddie will be devastated.”

They both turn to see John leaning against the wall looking distinctly unamused, even though Brian can see a corner of his lips twitching.

“John!” Roger greets, “but this blanket is threadbare!”

“It’s so beautiful!” John imitates Freddie's voice.

Roger laughs loudly while Brian lets out a soft breath. John walks over to join them on the couch. There’s another struggle as the shift to give John a proper amount of space and somehow Roger sneaks under the blanket. The new position forces one of Brian’s legs to hang off the side of the couch while the other is pinned between the cushions and Roger’s legs. It’s not uncomfortable except Brian knows that he’ll lose circulation eventually. For now, he’ll accept it because it _is_ cold in the apartment and John willing slid his legs between Brian’s and the back of the sofa.

John pulls out a packet from his bookbag and starts working on it while Roger forces Brian to watch whatever action movie is now playing.

“It seems I’ve missed an important invitation!”

Freddie’s voice startles the trio. John reacts the fastest and pulls his knees to his chest. Brian manages to protect Roger and himself from getting kicked as Freddie rolls over the back of the couch. Roger still whines as Freddie pins his feet. Thankfully Freddie is able to settle quickly by laying his hand in John’s lap and by resting his heels on Roger’s stomach he even releases Roger’s feet from where they were pinned.

“So,” Fred says as soon as he’s comfortable, “I was thinking about what we should wear next Saturday!”

“Clothes?” Roger mumbles.

John snorts.

“Very funny,” Fred flicks Roger’s shin.

“If you say anything other than clothes I’m not performing,” John states.

“Traitor.”

“They do have a point, Fred,” Brian shrugs.

“Anyway,” Fred singsongs, “I was thinking black and white for the theme.”

The rest of the evening is spent on the sofa vetoing and suggesting outfits. John is the first to fall asleep, awkwardly bent over the arm of the sofa. Brian winces at the position.

“Should we head to bed?” Brian asks after a few minutes.

Fred answers him with a snore. Brian sighs and looks down at Roger whose blinks are slowly getting longer and longer.

“Rog, get up.”

“Hmm, it's comfy.”

“It is,” Brian agrees, “but it won’t be in the morning.”

“Nooo.”

Brian leans back and tries to work his leg free from where it’s trapped by three people with no success. He accepts that he’ll have to listen to everyone’s complaints in the morning and he’ll spend all of tomorrow limping around. _Although,_ he thinks as Roger snuggles into him, _this isn’t the worse way to end the day._

* * *

Their set goes well. Roger is happy with how he played but less thrilled with how the celebration is progressing. Freddie and Mary vanished about twenty minutes after they finished their set which means that John left not long after that since he really only parties if Fred is present. It leaves him and Brian to celebrate.

“I have a paper due on Tuesday and I want to look it over one more time, preferably not hung over.”

Roger pouts, “leaving already?”

“Yeah, sorry mate.”

“It’s okay, don’t wait up.”

Brian rolls his eyes but then frowns, “you’ll be alright by yourself?”

“Yeah, with any luck I won’t be alone for long!”

Roger laughs and pulls a smile from Brian.

“But really, call me if something happens, please.”

“I will,” Roger promises and holds up his pinky.

Brian wraps his own pinky around Roger’s.

“See, now you don’t have to worry.”

There’s a second where Roger almost thinks Brian is going to stay but then he smiles softly. They share a quick hug and Brian hurries out of the bar. Now that he’s alone Roger saunters up to the pretty brunette that’s been making eyes at him all night. She smiles coyly when he offers to buy her a drink.

Roger gets dragged to the bar where he drinks enough to feel slightly tipsy. The girl, Amy he’s pretty sure, is bold and handsy. Usually, that would be enough to get him excited, and while he’s mildly interested Roger tries to think of a way to get out of this situation.

“Let’s head back to my place,” Amy whispers, “we’ll have a _much_ better time.”

He nods automatically.

* * *

> **SQUICK SCENE AHEAD**

* * *

Amy leads him out by the wrist and they walk quickly to where Roger presumes Amy’s flat is. Whatever interest he had in her wanes on the walk, and he cannot figure out why he suddenly doesn’t want to do anything when that had been his second goal of the evening following “play an amazing set.” He tries to think of the best way to let Amy down gently.

Then they’re suddenly in front of her house and he still doesn’t know how he wants to get out of this. She pulls him into the flat and presses him against the wall and kisses him hotly. The show of dominance is sexy but for whatever reason Roger just can’t get himself into the mood.

“Hey, stop. Hey,” he pants after a particularly long kiss and after Amy presses against his clothed groin.

His body reacts to the stimulation and he feels dizzy.

“Want to get to the main event right away?” Amy slides her hands under his shirt, “so easy.”

Roger arches away from them, but her hands skate up to his shoulders and then rake down his back. Instead of the usual spark of pleasure-pain, it’s just pain and he hisses. Which gave Amy the wrong idea he thinks because she drags a hand around his side, nails still digging. He twists away, but she’s already got a hand down his pants.

“Seriously,” he grits out, “stop.”

Amy glances up hand still down his pants, “oh I get it, you like playing hard to get.”

Roger shakes his head as she twists her hand around his member, “no really. Stop.”

Amy pulls away, “what, why?”

“I just don’t want to,” he grits his teeth against another tug.

That finally seems to get her to step back, but she doesn’t look happy. Roger quickly redoes his pants and tries to calm himself down, because he’s half-hard against his will and it’s making his skin itch.

“You’ll do anything that moves, but not me?”

“No,” Roger says, “it’s not- I don’t do anything that- listen this is all on me.”

She crosses her arms, “you sure about that?”

“Yes, it has nothing to do with you.”

“Hm, wonder if all that womanizing is for show,” she walks hands down his chest and it’s not as attractive as she thinks it is, “just to hide how much you like panting after dick.”

“What?”

“Oh, come on, you’re rather touchy with that band of yours. No wonder they keep a whore like you around.”

Roger bristles, “leave them out of this.”

“Come on,” she laughs, “just admit it to everyone else. No wonder you got so happy when I pinned you. You love the idea of being used. Slut.”

He spins around then. There’s no reason for him to stay here and take this from someone he barely knows. The door slams behind him and only belatedly did he realize that his jacket had been pushed off his shoulders when he entered the flat. Thankfully his wallet and phone were in his jeans pocket, but it was the middle of December. Also, he doesn’t have money for a cab or uber and he’s not entirely sure where he is in relation to his own flat.

* * *

> **SQUICK SCENE OVER**

* * *

Roger digs out his phone and curses. It’s dead. He looks around the mostly deserted street. So much for calling Brian if things got bad. They got so much worse than he thought they would.

_No wonder they keep a whore like you around._ The scratches on his back sting and he stumbles into the alley after a wave of nausea hits him. He can still feel the ghost touches of Amy. Roger falls to his knees and vomits.

_You love the idea of being used._ Roger tightens into a ball.

What he needs to do is get away from here, so he slowly pushes up from the ground. There has to be someplace he can go, charge his phone, get ahold of Brian. Again the sickly feeling settles in his stomach. How would he even explain this to Brian? Or any of Smile, now that he’s thinking about it.

‘Hey. I need you to come to pick me up because I can’t get home because some girl was way too handsy with me.’

Like that doesn’t sound pathetic. They’d ask why he didn’t want to have sex with the girl and he wouldn’t have a good answer and then he’d probably have to tell them what she said. He _knows_ the band loves him and keeps him around because he’s a good fit, but he can’t stop the circling though of the only reason they keep him around is because he’s easy.

Roger shivers and stumbles into the night.

* * *

Brian wakes up early for a Sunday. As he hoped he’s managed to escape a hangover and breakfast is already being cooked. He turns his head and sees that Roger’s bed is still made and there’s no sign of disturbance. It isn’t unusual considering Roger seemed to be in the mood to party or get laid, but Brian half hoped that the blond would have come home at a decent time.

He stretches and heads towards the living room. The couch and floor are also empty of Roger. Freddie and John glance up when he enters the kitchen.

“Roger make it home?” He asks.

“Hasn’t messaged or shown up,” John replies.

“Of course, we probably won’t see him until noon considering the mood we left him in.”

Brian nods. He thought as much, but he had been uneasy last night and he’s sure it has nothing to do with the essay that’s 20 percent of his grade. Still, he digs out his phone to text a quick message to Roger asking how he is.

“Stop worrying,” John says between sips of tea, “Roger’s a grown man, and if something did happen, he would’ve got ahold of us.”

He knows that as well. They made a deal after Freddie went missing for a solid six hours only to have the hospital call and ask if one of them could give him a ride home after a bought of food poisoning. Roger might not be the most mature member of the band but he’s rarely irresponsible with himself. Fred hands him a cup of tea and claps him on the back.

“You might be glad he’s not around, you can work on that paper without the leech clinging to you.”

Brian snorts. Freddie claps him on the back.

He manages to finish the revision of his paper by eleven and he’s confident that it’s good enough for the professor. In fact, he only paused four times to check his phone and message Roger. There’s nothing else that needs his attention, finals are the week after next so most of his professors have just decided that the week will be review and presentations. It’s a little too early to start studying considering he hasn’t gotten a study guide.

Brian heads to the kitchen to start making lunch. John is aimlessly spinning a pen on his fingers when he enters.

“Studies?” Brian asks while rooting around in the pantry.

“Song.”

“Oh,” Brian hums, “didn’t take you to be much of a songwriter.”

“I can.”

“Didn’t say you couldn’t.”

Brian glances back at John and the paper in front of him. There are no lyrics to the page yet, but Brian sees that it’s nearly filled with notes. He tries the melody in his head and it doesn’t sound half bad.

“It’s good.”

John nods and scratches out a series of chords only to replace them. It’s smoother with the rest of the song now. Seeing as John isn’t overly talkative Brian turns his attention back to meal prep. He’s not making anything overly complicated, really, it’s just a warm salad that Fred is going to complain about but that’s all they have the ingredients for. Roger and John were meant to go shopping for groceries this evening.

Which again he sends a text to remind Roger about. At some point, the blond won’t ignore them.

By the time Fred wanders back into the kitchen, Brian is anxiously glancing at the door. He knows Roger usually isn’t on time, but he can’t help but think that since it is noon he should be back from whatever escapade he’s gone off on. John munches his salad moodily while Freddie makes alterations to the song.

“Relax darling,” Fred coos after a while, “Roger will come home.”

“You make him sound like a stray cat,” John mumbles.

Romeo decides to take offense to that statement and yowls loudly. Brian kneels down to check the cat’s bowls, which are both filled. Freddie picks the cat up and holds him close.

“See, even the cat is concerned and he hates Roger,” Brian says.

Fred makes a face, “Romeo doesn’t hate Roger.”

Brian raises an eyebrow, “Wednesday’s shower incident?”

The cat had snuck into the bathroom while Roger was showering and apparently had jumped right in front of Roger just as he was stepping out of the tub causing the drummer to jump and slip. It gave Roger a rather nasty headache for the rest of the day and sent Romeo into hiding for long enough that Freddie worried the cat had gotten out.

“Fair, but there were no witnesses. Could have been Roger not paying attention.”

John is viciously scratching out one of Freddie’s rewrites, “should we be basing our emotions off of a cat in the first place?”

“Hey, I liked that bit!”

“It was a bit showy, especially since it’s supposed to be a moment for percussion.”

Brian quickly escapes the ensuing one-sided argument ( Fred hasn’t learned that Deaky doesn’t argue, he just does what he likes) and almost feels bad for Romeo who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the house. Still, he thinks that John may be onto something with songwriting and he heads up to the band room. He plays a mindless tune while he thinks of something to play or work on, except the only things that he needs to be worked on in his song is the rhythm section and considering John is in a mood and Roger isn’t home that isn’t getting done.

Instead, he just practices chords and fingering. The routine tunes out the rest of the world until Fred pokes his head into the room.

“Deaky and I are going grocery shopping, need anything, not on the list?”

“No,” Brian sets his guitar down, “what time is it?”

“Three.”

Brian looks a little hopeful.

“No,” Fred sighs, “he’s not called.”

He curses and checks his phone in case he missed it going off while he was lost in his own world. There’re messages from his mom and some from one of his lectures. Fred and John had apparently been using the band group chat to argue about the song further. Brian goes as far as to check Roger’s social media for any updates.

Nothing.

Fred frowns, there’s an edge of worry in his eyes now, “his phone might be dead.”

“He should be back,” Brian counters.

“Unless he’s actually having fun with whoever took him home.”

Brian shrugs, “still.”

“We’ll be back, try not to go gray in the meantime.”

Brian migrates to the living room shortly after Fred and John leave. He spins his phone in his hand before giving in and calling Roger, he taps his lips while he waits for the phone to connect. The phone goes to voicemail automatically and Brian tosses it down the couch. So Roger’s phone is off or dead, and it’s likely the latter.

He doesn’t move from the sofa until he hears the door open. Brian stands and spins only to hear the rustling of grocery bags. Quickly he heads to help them. Freddie looks surprised when he sees him.

“Is Roger back yet?” John asks quickly.

“No,” Brian grabs a bag from Fred, “I’m going to look for him.”

“You don’t know where he could be,” Freddie sighs.

“I have to do something, just sitting here is driving me mad!”

John sets the grocery bags on the counter, “so wandering around London is going to help?”

Brian shrugs.

“Brian, dear, listen to yourself.”

“Fred, please. I have to.”

Freddie glances at John and sighs, “okay. Fine. But I’m coming with you.”

Brian looks at John hopefully.

“I’ll stay behind in case he shows up.”

“C’mon Bri,” Fred places a hand on his back, “We’ll search for an hour and if he’s not back by the time we are, then we’ll call someone.”

Brian swallows. He doesn’t particularly care how Roger gets found as long as he’s okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave your thoughts below. Let me know if you need anything tagged! I promise this is probably the only squicky scene I'll right like this.


	5. Sadness and Sickness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a break from reviews to write this because you all are lovely and I'm glad you're enjoying it so much!

Roger wakes up on a bench. It takes him a second to realizes that he’s not entirely sure where he is and wonder why he’s on a bench and not in his very comfortable bed. He shudders at the flood of memories.

It seems like it’s late morning, but he doesn’t have a phone or watch to confirm. Roger blinks as snow hits his bare arms. He’s lucky he didn’t catch hypothermia, but his unnaturally warm face tells him that he’s taken ill. Brian is going to murder him.

_Shit! Brian!_

Roger shakily gets to his feet and starts to think. He has a dead phone, but a card with money on it. This part of town seems mostly residential so he’ll have to walk until he finds a store. There’s no telling how long that will take and his tube pass was in his jacket he lost.

“Okay, Rog, this isn’t terrible.”

It’s broad daylight and he doesn’t look too homeless. A shiver wracks his body which forces his feet to move. He’s already sick, and he doesn’t need to make it worse for himself. The others were going to be mad enough as is.

“You okay there, son?”

Roger jumps.

“Didn’t mean to spook ya.”

Roger turns to see an old man with a fluffy dog wearing a cowboy hat. He would laugh if he didn’t think that it would launch him into a coughing fit.

“No it,” Roger clears his throat, “do you know where the nearest store is?”

“Sounds like you had a rough night.”

Roger winces.

“There’s one about six blocks thataway.”

He tracks were the finger is pointing to, “thank you.”

“Take care now.”

He slides his hands into his pockets. To his surprise, both his phone and wallet were still in his possession. A quick also shows him that his wallet was untouched, he would have been beyond screwed if he got robbed. Also, not that he’s cursing himself but he’s surprised he hadn’t been arrested as a transient.

The walk takes him about forty minutes, and he’s never been happier to see a neon open sign. Originally he’d was concerned that the store would be closed, it being Sunday and all. Roger b-lines to the phone accessories and grabs the charger and an adapter. The clerk looks at him a little worried.

He pays in cash, unsure of how much was on his card. It might be needed at a more critical time.

“Where’s the uh,” Roger runs a hand through his hair at a wave of dizziness, “where the nearest Starbucks?”

“Go straight for a block, then turn right and straight for two more.”

The clerk is calmer now that he’s bought something. Roger offers her a grin that would usually be charming but he’s not properly groomed and he grimaces after a second remembering it was his smile that got him into this dammed mess in the first place. So he’d have to stop flirting for a while. Like that wouldn’t worry the band, he snorts. They’re going to get him committed because he stopped having a lot of sex.

The clerk is eyeing him again so Roger grabs the bag and hurries out of the store. Snow is falling steadily now. He curses and picks up his pace. More people are out. Now and then he sees a face sent in his direction, and he tries to curl into himself to be as small as possible. His skin is turning red and his face his growing hotter by the minute, his steps turn unsteady.

He feels like he’s about to pass out. Luckily he sees the Starbucks and he’s able to stumble inside before he passes out. Roger knows that it’s a combination of low sugar and a now compromised immune system that’s making him feel like shit, so some time in the warmth getting properly hydrated should ease some of the symptoms.

“One orange scone and a water, please.”

The barista looks unimpressed with his order, but he ignores Roger’s presence when he slips a fiver into the tip jar. As soon as he gets his order, he slips into a bench by the window where he can see an unused plug. It takes a few minutes, but eventually, his phone lights up. He checks the time.

11:12.

_Shit._

Slowly his notifications load up. Most of them a are from Twitter, including a few DMs but they’re not from any of the handles he cares about so he swipes them away for later.

> 9:06
> 
> _Bribri: How was last night? Give me a heads up when you’re on your way back._

Roger chokes on the scone when he thinks about last night.

> 9:14
> 
> _Ready Freddie: Do let Brian know you’re alive._

He doesn’t understand why Brian is so worried.

> 9:56
> 
> _Baby Deaky(ling): We have to get groceries. Leaving at @15:00._

Good to know that Deaky didn’t think he’d end up in a ditch if left unsupervised. Although he sort of feels like he did.

> 10:07
> 
> _Bribri: You good?_
> 
> 10:34
> 
> _Bribri: Roger. Text me when you get this. Please._
> 
> 10:48
> 
> _Bribri: I just can’t shake this feeling. Call me._

Roger swallows and holds his finger above the reply button. All he had to do was assure them that he was alive, it would buy him some time to cope with everything that’s happened in the past twelve hours. Not to mention he might be able to recuperate enough to actually make it to the flat.

> 11:14
> 
> _Bribri: You have to go shopping with Deaky. Hurry Home._

His heart stops at the thought. He wants to go home, but now he knows that Brian is going to be nosy and clingy. On a good day the change would be nice but now the thought of being touched makes him feel like there are bugs crawling under his skin.

No, he needs time to get control of himself. The others would understand eventually. Also, the screen is blurring before him. He can’t walk and Deaky is the only other one with a car. Deak’s already going to be pissed that he has to shop alone because Roger knows there’s no way he could make it through that.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Roger jumps at the hand on his back.

“Sorry,” it’s an older woman. 

Roger tilts his head to look at her, but he can’t focus.

“Are you feeling alright? You look rather flushed!”

“I, uh, yeah. I uhm, can’t get ahold of my flatmates to give me a ride back.”

The old woman smiles kindly and digs through her purse. She pulls out a small bottle of Tylenol.

“Let me get you more water, and that should help with the fever.”

Roger takes the two pills with the remainder of his water, just as the woman returns with a new cup.

“I wish I could drive you back, but I’m very busy today.”

“No,” Roger shakes his head, “you’ve done enough.”

She smiles,” be careful dear.”

Roger ducks his head and sips more water.

An hour later the dizziness and heat have dulled to a tolerable level. He’s managed to drink two more cups of water and eat the rest of the scone. Like he suspected the hydration and food helped, and the Tylenol was an unexpected blessing. His phone tells him that the walk is an hour and a half. It’ll be a near thing, getting there before his body crashes, but he thinks that he can do it.

Especially if he goes now when the snow has let up. It is still cold, but Roger knows better than to complain.

Before he gets too far from Starbucks he switches his phone into airplane mode. Mostly because he was only able to charge his phone to 42 percent. Shitty chargers are only good for emergencies.

He walks at a slow pace, not trusting himself to move at his usual brisk pace. The medication is helping, but it was such a low dose mixed with exertion, so there’s pressure building between his eyes and his throat feels scratchy. His skin feels raw from the cold, but it’s bright red instead of a more alarming shade, although there’s a pretty good chance that he’ll develop at least superficial frostbite at this point.

A wave of nausea forces him to a bench where he closes his eyes against the resurgence of vertigo. He’s pretty sure he’s been walking for over an hour. The streets look familiar, but Roger can’t make himself stand, his legs feel too weak. He leans back against the bench, eyes still tightly closed.

Well, he’s really gone and fucked himself up. Roger can’t remember the last time that he was this sick. He feels the fever start to climb again, and this time he starts sweating. It cools and now he’s constantly shivering.

Carefully he works his phone out of his pocket, he’s shaking so badly he thinks that he may drop it. Apparently, he’s been sitting on this bench for almost two hours. It explains why his symptoms are getting worse, the medication is was wearing off.

_Fuck._ If the band wasn’t already freaking out, they would be now. He’s almost missed going shopping with Deaky.

He pushes himself up and gets his bearings as best he could. Part of him still recoils from the thought of calling the band for help. That part of him is telling himself that he can’t get too needy or the band will drop him because they only keep him around because he’s easy.

So he slides the phone back in his pocket and starts out at an even slower pace than before. After what seems like an eternity, the flat comes into view. Roger fights down the second of panic as he tries to remember where his keys were. He thinks he may have left them in his jacket. There’s a horrible moment where he thinks Amy may sneak in and- his hands close around cold metal and he sobs relief. That’s not the rabbit hole he needs to fall down now.

Not that he needs them, because the door was unlocked.

* * *

John jumps up when he hears the door open.

“Did you find him?” He asks before he turns the corner.

He’s not entirely sure of what he’s seeing for a moment, then his mind catches up.

“Rog?”

Roger is slumped against the wall dazed and flush. His blue eyes are bright with illness. John rushes towards him, and he hisses when his hand touches too hot skin.

“You’re burning up!”

John’s eyes dart around in thought. His mom always gave him a luke-warm bath when he was ill. They needed to lower the fever without putting Roger into shock. He lifts an arm around his shoulder. Roger fights against him.

“Don’t touch me.”

Roger sounds genuinely scared, which makes John’s own anxiety jump. _His fever is high enough to cause delusions._

“Sorry, mate. You look like you’re two seconds away from passing out.”

Roger puts up a surprisingly good fight, and it breaks John’s heart to go against his friend's wishes like this. John has the advantage of being healthy and aware, so they make it to the bathroom. He sits Roger on the toilet and runs the bath. Happy with the temperature he looks at his friend who’s sagging.

“Okay, strip.”

Roger bursting into tears is not what he expected. He flounders for a second, Fred or Brian would know what to do immediately, although they might be out of their depths because while Roger was emotional he was typically rational with showing it. Gently John lifts Roger’s head so they can make eye contact, he tries to ignore the surge of hurt he feels at the flinch but there’s a spark of clarity finally.

“Rog, we need to get you in the water.”

Roger shakes his head.

“I’ll close the shower curtain,” John pleads, “you’re fever is too high. We need to lower it.”

There’s no movement.

“I’m worried you’ll pass out, so I don’t want to leave you alone, but I’ll step out while you undress.”

That finally gets a positive reaction. John lets out a sigh of relief, and it’ll give him time to call Brian and Freddie. He leans against the wall next to the bathroom door, so he can help Roger if need be but Roger doesn’t notice his presence.

“Is he back?” Brian answers on the first ring.

“Uh, I, uh yeah. He’s home.”

“Is he okay?” There’s a shout as Freddie takes the phone.

“He’s in the bath now,” John bites his lip, “he’s got a bit of a fever.”

“We’re on the way back.”

“Okay.”

John feels immensely bad for downplaying Roger’s illness, but he doesn’t want to worry them further. He’s pretty sure they’ll have to take Roger to the hospital if they can’t drop the fever and keep it down. Quietly he heads back into the bathroom. The curtain is pulled over far enough that it covers all but Roger’s head. Color is returning to his face, but it’s still flushed. John curses at himself for not taking Roger’s temperature prior to the bath.

He figures that he can make sure it doesn’t increase, so he’ll take it afterward. John clears his throat after twenty minutes. Roger glances at him with much clearer eyes, so he’ll take that as a sign the bath did work.

“We should get you to bed before the others come back.”

There’s another wince, but Roger speaks softly, “okay.”

John bends down to help Roger stand, which earns him a look, to which he takes to mean that he should leave. Instead, he moves towards Roger’s bedroom, there’s a pile of clean laundry so he grabs the first pair of sleep pants and t-shirt he finds.

He tosses them into the bathroom not wanting to violate Roger’s privacy any more today. John trust that Roger would ask for help if he needs it. This day’s events aside, there was probably a reason Roger went missing for over fifteen hours.

The blond steps out of the bathroom, and belatedly John realizes that he’s given Roger Brian’s clothes. He looks much better, but still a little shaky. John directs him to Roger’s room with a tilt of his head. Once the blond is shuffling towards his room, John enters the bathroom. He empties Roger’s pockets before tossing the old clothes into the red hamper ( _wasn’t he wearing a jacket last night?)._ He frowns when he sees Roger’s phone light up, but notes that it was in airplane mode.

_Maybe he forgot to turn it off after the gig?_

Mess taken care of John grabs the few bottles of medicine they have and takes them to Roger. There’s no reaction when he enters the room and for a second he worries that Roger has passed out, but as he moves around the bed he sees that Roger is staring off at nothing. Not that it's any better.

“Rog?”

“Hm?”

Okay, at least he was reacting now.

“You’re the biologist, here’s medicine. I don’t know what to mix or what’s most helpful.”

He could probably figure it out, but he wants Roger to do something other than just listlessly follow John’s advice. Slowly the blond sits up and takes the bottles. He carefully distributes the dosages of three of the bottles and with a grimace Roger takes them. John sits the bottles on the nightstand for either Roger of Brian’s use and then pats Roger’s leg which is sharply pulled away from him.

It hurts, but John takes it as his hint to let Roger rest. He gets to the living room and curses himself because he forgot to take Rog’s temperature again. Although, Brian might be a better person for the job considering Roger is already touchy with him.

He knows Brian is going to hover around Roger anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a lot going on, but hopefully, I did your expectations justice? As always leave your thoughts below!


	6. Safety and Concerns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really bad at taking a break when I'm inspired.

Brian doesn’t think that he’s ever tried to get to the flat in such a short amount of time. Fred struggles to keep up with him.

“I’m as thrilled as you are,” Fred pants, “but he’ll still be there if we don’t run home.”

He wants to argue but he wants to get back to the flat much more urgently. Something in John’s voice increased his worry, not even considering that Roger’s come home sick.

Fred grabs his arm, “Brian. You won’t do Roger any good storming in there and fussing over him.”

The uncharacteristically serious voice makes him stop. Freddie has a point, Roger was in tune with emotions and usually reacted to other peoples with the same emotion. He probably is already anxious and stressed, Brian doesn’t need to make it worse.

“Thinking straight now?”

He nods, “thanks, Fred.”

“Someone has to be the calm one in this family, and considering today, that’s me.”

Brian snorts, wondering how they got to the point where _Fred_ was the _calm_ one. It’s been a long day he reasons, he’s been wound tight with worry for most of it and John doesn’t handle sudden stress well.

“Now, let’s head back before responsible me leaves.”

They still make it back to the flat in record time. Brian isn’t as twitchy when they arrive. He knows that was Fred’s goal rather than a lack of concern for Roger.

John is in the living room, one leg bouncing and he’s fiddling with something in his hands.

“You’re back,” John says a little uselessly.

“How’s Roger?”

Fred tightens a hand around his wrists. It’s a warning.

“Sleeping, I assume,” John replies, “gave him medicine. He looked like he had a rather bad fever when he came home.”

“Did you check it?”

John shakes his head, “no, I was trying to get it down. Figure we’ll know if it climbs back up.”

“He didn’t say anything then?”

“No, he was too out of it.”

Fred drops his wrist and Brian takes that as permission to leave. He stops to grab the thermometer and heads to their room. It’s quiet when he enters, aside from a few soft breaths from Roger. Brian lays his wrist across Roger’s forehead, which still feels warm.

Brian sets the thermometer down and leaves to grab a washrag. He’s grateful for the flue he got last year, for once. Roger nursed him through it, and Brian still remembers everything that Roger did for him. They probably should know basic first aid, but a: Roger rarely got sick and b: he knows enough about the human body to treat illnesses and stock their medicine cabinet.

He places the rag on Roger’s neck after pushing sweaty blond locks to the side. Roger lets out a soft sigh. Brian then grabs the thermometer and slips into Roger’s parted lips. Thankfully the drummer doesn’t wake up (also alarming because Roger is a very light sleeper). A minute passes and the thermometer beeps.

38.5.

Brian winces because if they’ve already treated the fever that meant it had been dangerously high. Roger stirs slightly, and Brian quickly sets the thermometer to the side. Hazy blue eyes glance up at him.

“Bri?” He whispers.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he replies just as quietly.

Roger inches away from him and Brian’s unsure of what the movement meant. Usually, Roger would move closer if he wanted to cuddle and there’s no pleading expression for him to lay down. Instead, Brian settles on his knees and props his head on the space. There’s a flash of relief in Roger’s eyes, and Brian thinks that Roger’s worried about getting him sick.

“Mm sorry.”

Brian tilts his head, “for what?”

Roger’s already fallen asleep again. He sits there for a couple seconds longer trying to puzzle out what Roger meant, but nothing is coming to mind. Reassured that Roger’s okay, he leaves the man to rest and returns to the living room.

Freddie is messing around in the kitchen, to which Brian raises an eye at, but instead turns to John whose returned to the corner on his couch.

“Hey,” Brian says softly.

John looks up a little surprised, “did you check his fever?”

“Yeah,” Brian settles next to the bassist, “it’s still pretty high.”

Strangely enough, John moves so that he’s pressed against Brian’s side. Brian doesn’t mind it, he likes the physical reassurance, but he wonders at what’s making John like this.

“Are you okay?”

John lays his head against Brian’s shoulder, “mostly.”

Brian wraps an arm around John and waits.

“I think he was delusional when he came home,” John says after some time.

Freddie is still in the kitchen and it sounds like a disaster, so Brian keeps his voice low as to not attract any attention.

“Well, if his fever was high enough, that makes sense. He probably should have gone to the hospital.”

John nods.

There’s still something more John is mulling over so Brian just hugs him tighter.

“I thought that, except he got weird about me touching him even after I managed to drop the fever.”

That is a surprise and Brian understands why John’s so torn up about it. Roger loves physical contact, so for him to reject it, there has to be a reason. Brian thinks back to his time with the band before either Fred or John joined.

“It’s not just you, he moved away from me,” Brian says.

John marginally relaxes against him.

“And he doesn’t really like to be messed with when he’s sick.”

It’s partially the truth, Roger lets the people he’s most comfortable be around him when he’s sick, but Brian is sure that this is just because Roger is uncomfortable and cranky (with a possible hangover) rather than some commentary on his relationship with the band.

“Okay,” John breathes.

They listen to Freddie curse in the kitchen and share baby smiles. He’s still worried about Roger, and in about a half an hour he’ll go and check on him, but it’s nice to not be alone and freaking out. John finally takes pity on Freddie and gets up to help. Brian uses the fact that he’s no longer a pillow to sneak up to their shared bedroom.

Roger’s curled in on himself and to Brian’s surprise, he meets a pair of red-rimmed eyes. He hurries to his spot on the side of the bed, his hands waving awkwardly as he remembers the earlier conversation he had with John. Again he places them on the bed, but away from Roger who again looks relieved at the lack of contact.

“How are you feeling?”

Roger coughs a little, “sick.”

“Need anything?”

“No,” Roger shakes his head

“Okay,” Brian wants to ask why Roger was crying.

He also doesn’t know when he should check Roger’s temperature again. It seemed too soon, but if they can catch it before it raises to dangerous heights again.

“When’d you check my temperature last?”

“About forty-five minutes ago.”

Roger nods, “and how long since I took medicine?”

“Maybe an hour and a half?”

“Okay.”

Brian realizes now that it was too soon to do anything else, they have to give the medication a chance to work. Roger knows that too judging by his grimace as he shifts.

“Want me to wet the rag again?”

“Yeah.”

He takes the rag from Roger’s hand and disappears down towards the bathroom.

* * *

Roger listens as Brian walks down the hallway for what feels like the tenth time tonight. He’s sure it's mostly due to the fever, but his attempts at sleep have been unsuccessful. It doesn’t help that Brian comes and checks on him every thirty to forty minutes to rewet the rag. He appreciates that Brian wants to help (and hasn’t touched him) but Roger doesn’t want to be a burden.

His fever is down the point that he can think clearer, but he’s still too uncomfortable to sleep, which is what he needs to beat this illness. Roger forces his head deeper into the pillow.

Brian reenters the room and offers him the rag. He replaces it and quietly moans at the relief it provides.

“Bri, what time is it?”

“23:16.”

“Go to sleep,” it’s a little sharper than he wants it to sound.

“Rog-”

“I’m an adult, and I’m not dying. You need sleep, you have a 9 am tomorrow.”

Brian’s eyes are wide, “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just worried about you.”

Roger frantically tries to push back his anger. He isn’t as clear-headed as he thought.

“Oh come off it, you didn’t think I would be fine the moment you planned to leave me alone. Now I’m just proving you right.”

Well, he failed _spectacularly_ at keeping himself in check.

“Roger if I didn’t think you could handle yourself, I wouldn’t have left you alone.”

He swallows but the words slip out of his throat, “so what’s it mean that you hesitated?”

Roger hears the deep breath Brian takes and his anxiety spikes straight to his eyes. He has to close them to keep the tears from falling.

“Rog, I am concerned about you because I care,” Brian says softly.

He turns away.

“And I’m not happy you’re sick. I could never be happy at your pain.”

The hand on his shoulder is too much. Roger shoves it off with a shrug. He pretends to ignore the noise Brian makes that almost makes it sound like he’s hurt.

_Abort, abort, abort._

“Shove it, you wouldn’t be hovering if you weren’t getting something out of it.”

Roger settles with his back to Brian because now he really is crying. He can’t keep his emotions in check and Brian doesn’t think he can take care of himself. It’s awful because Brian is the only person he would have told the entire story about last night to, but now he’s worried all he’ll get is a judgement from the band (he was already worried but this just cements the idea).

He doesn’t want to look any more pathetic to the band. Roger doesn’t want them to feel like he needs to be handled. Not that he needs to be, last night was just a bad night.

“Call if you need anything.”

Brian sounds mad. Roger curls into himself and bites his lip to avoid audibly sobbing. He bites down hard enough to cause bleeding. The taste of copper fill his mouth and he grimaces. Roger isn’t sure how long he sobs for, but his throat is scratchy and his chest hurts from the staccato breaths he was taking. He is physically exhausted from this day, it really could not have gone worse.

Rather, he doesn’t want to think about how this could have gone worse.

Roger flips onto his back once he’s sure that Brian isn’t coming back anytime soon to restart the argument. For once the ceiling decorations don’t offer him any guidance.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t help his sleeping problem. His mind is too active to settle now, and he can tell that the medicine is starting to reach the point where it’s ineffective but it’s too soon to take another dose. His body is achy and his face is warm. Tears well up again, he’s uncomfortable and feels like shit because he treated Brian like shit. Now that he’s thinking about it, he also treated John like shit too when he came home. Freddie’s the only one that remained unscathed because he’s the only one who’s wise enough to stay away.

He really, really, tries to not take that fact to heart.

It really, really, does not work as the thinks about all the times Freddie has needled him these past few months. He apologized, but probably because either Brian or John made him do it.

_Fuck._

Hell, he can’t even sleep this mood off because he’s so uncomfortable and he misses Brian’s soft breathes in the bed across from his. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, finals are next week? So sharing the pain! See you on the 15th at the earliest. Good luck to you all also taking finals or whatever your current life endeavors are.  
> Remember when I had long chapters? Me to, I'll hopefully remedy that next update. What do you guys think will happen?


	7. Anxiety, that's it that's the chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, now there's a break in the chapter titles. But for real. It's accurate! I'm super glad you all are enjoying this little pet project of mine! Hey look! Freddie is the main focus!

Freddie shares a look with John as the hallway closet closes loudly. It isn’t a slam, but it might as well have been as coming from Brian. A few minutes pass and Fred is about to get up and check. Brian enters the living room.

“Why so many blankets?” John asks.

“Sleeping in the living room for the foreseeable future.”

“Roger that bad then?” Fred means it as a joke.

“In a sense? Yes.”

Brian looks tired and well past his twenty-three years of life, “he’s sick and miserable. I’m giving him space.”

John glances up, “for your peace of mind or his?”

“Roger’s. We had a bit of a tiff and I don’t think he wants anyone to see him.”

There’s a faint worry forming in the back of his head. Roger argues with everyone, but he usually doesn’t _mean_ anything by it. More than likely he’s just sick and that’s ruining his mood. Of course, there’s the tiny fact he was missing for a day and didn’t call anyone. He should’ve called considering the fever he had. Fred decides that he shouldn’t try to read into things that aren’t there.

But there is also John and Brian’s conversation he overheard…

“Maybe I should miss tomorrow’s classes,” Brian taps his fingers on his lips

John frowns, “and miss that star viewing party you’ve been excited for since last Monday?”

Brian’s face twists.

“What was your argument about?” Freddie interjects.

“He seems to think that I think that he can’t take care of himself.”

“And you don’t think that?” Fred attempts to mirror Brian’s raised eyebrow look.

Brian is unimpressed, “of course not! I don’t want him to get sicker!”

“He’ll hate it if you miss tomorrow for him.”

John has a point, Fred knows that Roger loves attention but only seeks it out when it’s not too inconvenient.

“Obviously he’s feeling insecure about this. All most of us have done is fret over him and lecture him.”

Fred wonders where John gets his insights from. Brian’s face falls and he continues the rhythm on his lip. He looks up at the sky, wondering how his bandmates always overthink things (Roger doesn’t think things through but that’s another story).

“My first class isn’t until noon. I’ll be here until 11:30,” he says, “John you’re done at 14:00, yeah?”

John nods.

“So, Roger won’t be alone but for a few hours, he knows to call if he needs help.”

“It might be good for him to be completely alone.”

Brian nods, but he doesn’t look happy, Fred can see the corner of his eyes crease, “you’re right.”

“Usually am,” John mumbles.

Brian sputters. Freddie laughs, but his mind keeps trying to piece the Roger situation together. He was sure this is illness induced moodiness, but now there are a lot of doubts. John’s comment about insecurity and the fact that Roger didn’t call (he knows Roger takes the rule to heart because he’s been home when Brian rushed in to help Roger through an anxiety attack). That’s the other thing, Brian has been shut out for the first time which is making Brian’s worry worse which is then bother Roger. It’s a nasty little circle.

Fred has never seen Roger push Brian away physically either, but now Brian is camping in the living room.

“Well, it’s been a very long day. Sleep will do us all a world of good!” He claps his hands and stands.

The others don’t seem to notice that the cheer in his voice is fake.

* * *

John wakes him at seven.

“Why.”

“Brian will probably stay if you’re still asleep.”

 _Fair point._ Fred grimaces and complains loudly, but as expected John doesn’t care. He does, however, wait until Freddie drags himself from his bed. There are sounds coming from the bathroom and he frowns. Brian rarely showers in the morning.

Except he didn’t shower last night, and Fred doubts that a sick Roger would be up at seven because of hygiene. Just to make sure he peeks into Roger’s room. The blond has burrowed into the blankets. _Must’ve gotten chilled._

“I offered him more blankets last night,” John says from over his shoulder, “said it would make the fever last longer.”

Fred knows John has a pattern of disturbed sleep, so the statement isn’t surprising, “why was Roger awake?”

“Bathroom,” John answers.

It makes sense and he really needs to turn down the worry before he starts acting like Brian and hovering. They really only need one fight going on right now. Brian takes that moment to exit the bathroom. Fred laughs because Brian looks like a drowned poodle. He earns himself a glare.

“What are you doing up?”

Fred shrugs, “homework.”

It’s mostly a lie, but he does have a project that could do with some last minute edits and he should read over his senior thesis again because he has a meeting this afternoon on it.

“Ah.”

John is already in the kitchen. He’s eating cereal and periodically stopping to write an answer. Fred rummages through the cabinet. There’s nothing that strikes his fancy, so he eats one of Brian’s gross energy bars.

“What do I make Roger?”

John pauses. His brow furrows, “something light if you’re talking about food. Fruit.”

“Should he have something more?”

“Depends on his stomach. The fever might have killed his appetite or he can’t keep anything down.”

It’s reasonable.

“But we don’t know if he ate anything yesterday!”

John looks as if he already thought about that, “simple sugars will keep him from crashing. I can make him something better when I get back.”

Brian arrives and he’s frowning, “Roger took the doses and claims his fever hasn’t gotten any worse.”

Fred understands that to mean it hasn’t gotten any better either. He wonders what it feels like to be rejected by a best friend. If he were to guess based on Brian’s appearance, it must be the worst thing in the world. Brian isn’t prone to dramatics.

“Well, that’s good then.”

Brian looks doubtful.

“Ready?” John closes the textbook.

“Yeah,” Brian doesn’t move.

“Brian, darling, go,” Fred encourages, “you’ll see him tonight.”

The look he sends Freddie is pitiful. As always, John solves the dilemma. He stands to leave, which forces Brian to choose. Brian remains immobile. John sighs. Then Fred watches the surprise on Brian’s face as John drags him out of the flat. He winces because John rarely is that forceful, Brian is about to get one hell of a lecture.

* * *

John keeps his eyes on the road but he knows Brian is genuinely cross with him. He understands the feeling, Brian isn’t winning any points with him. For a second he hesitates, then he turns the music down.

“Okay, what’s your issue?”

“What?”

“You fret and worry, and Roger loves that. Freddie and I like that you care,” John keeps his voice level, “but this is becoming overbearing.”

Brian crosses his arms, “Roger is sick! I just want to help him.”

“By smothering him?”

“I wasn’t.”

“If he were a kid or more ill, I wouldn’t be taking issue. Except you were willing to put your life on hold, miss a weird astronomical event because he has a fever!”

Brian is quiet. John waits. They’re ten minutes from campus and forty from having to go to class. He can play this game. After a minute Brian gives in.

“This feels like it’s my fault.”

 _There it is._ Although he kind of figured out that’s what the problem is.

“Why?”

“I left him at the bar. What if he was already sick?”

John prays for his patience to last a little longer, “did he look sick?”

“No.”

“Did he tell you he felt ill?”

“No.”

“Then there’s no way you could have known.”

Brian nods and opens his mouth.

“He didn’t call you. You aren’t his keeper. Do you honestly think Roger would appreciate you calling him at all times? He’s an adult.”

John drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

“I suppose, but I just want to help him.”

“You have,” John reassures him, “but you have to remember you’re a friend first. That’s what’s going to help Rog the most. He knows how to make himself healthy again.”

He pauses, “besides, he’s the only one of us that has a valid reason to play nurse. He actually knows what the medicine does.”

Brian chuckles, “you’re right. Thanks for stopping my spiral.”

“Sure.”

John hopes that he has at least. Brian is inscrutable at the best of times. Although, even if he’s delayed it, that helps. There’s a very good chance that Roger’s fever will break today and he’ll be fine by tomorrow. Things will get to normal after this.

They’ll play and make music and argue and be happy.

* * *

Roger wakes up at nine. Fred only knows this because he hears a yell, thud, and cursing. He hurries towards the room. Mostly curious but slightly concerned about the noises. Roger blinks at him from the floor.

“Okay?”

Roger shakes his head, “yeah.”

Fred doesn’t comment on the contradiction, “let me help you up.”

“I got it,” Roger pushes himself up, “thanks though.”

“Want breakfast?”

Roger looks at him and Freddie doesn’t know what to do. Roger looks like he’s seconds from breaking. The look lasts for a heartbeat. Then Roger flashes an all too familiar smile. It scares Fred more than he would admit. He wonders how many times he’s missed a moment like this and how often Roger’s hidden it.

“Food can’t hurt!”

“How are you feeling?” Freddie rushes out.

“Like shit,” Roger sticks his tongue out it a silent laugh, “although, it’s a fever, so can’t hope for more until it breaks.”

Fred really wonders about the look, be he doesn’t want to push. He knows he’ll have to. Now that he’s seen it, he has to figure it out. If something were to happen and he didn’t-

“Deaky said you should just have fruit.”

“Deaky isn’t any fun,” Roger laughs, and it sounds real, “but he’s got the right idea of it.”

Fred smiles.

Roger has a flushed face and his eyes are a little glassy. It seems like a standard fever one gets from overworking himself. Freddie can’t stop the record skip in his mind _wrong.wrong.wrong._ Mostly because Roger makes a point to walk around him. Usually, there would be contact. He follows Roger to the kitchen.

They stay quiet while Roger attempts to peel an apple in one go. He manages to get it three-fourths of the way peeled before it tears. Fred snorts at Roger’s devastated face. In retaliation, Roger flings the peel at him. It goes into the trash.

“So,” he says after Roger set the knife down, “why were you on the floor?”

“Fell out of bed,” Roger says through a mouthful of apple.

“Manners,” Fred says automatically, “but why did you fall?”

Roger sticks his tongue out then settles, “bad dream, I think.”

“Don’t remember it?”

“I don’t usually remember them.”

There’s an awkward silence, “why are you so interested?”

Fred bites back his default deflection “making conversation.” This is the only opening he’ll have because he _sees_ Roger’s guard going up.

“I’m worried. I overheard Deak and Brian talking last night,” Fred inhales, “please be honest. I don’t care if you’re as vague as can be. Just tell me what you’re comfortable with.”

Fred lets out the breath to stop rambling, “did something happen Saturday night?”

Roger’s reaction is all the confirmation that he needs. His natural color (the flush from the fever is prominent still) drains from Roger’s face and his eyes go wide. His hands move to grip the counter but change course to tug at his blond hair. The apple thudding as it hits the ground restarts time. Roger drops. Fred moves to him, his hands hovering by Roger’s shaking shoulders but not touching.

“Rog, hey, hey. Breathe. Roger. You’re okay.”

Freddie doesn’t know that but he also doesn’t know what to do. It sounds like Roger _can’t_ breathe. This is so out of his depth it might as well be Rocket science. Brian! He digs for his phone but stops. That would be a worse idea. What does Brian do?

Cuddling.

Probably a bad choice, considering his suspicions.

_Think, Freddie._

Sometimes he hears singing. _Okay._ He can work with that. The only songs he could think of were theirs.

“Yesterday my life was in ruin…”

So. Not the best choice. But he’s pretty sure Roger isn’t focusing on the words.

“Now today I know what I’m doing, got a feeling I should be doing all right!”

He’s singing with a softness Roger would usually hate. This isn’t the time to be vocally masterful, “doing all right.”

When he reaches the end he’s pleased to see Roger’s breathing is slower. Still fast, but not fast enough he’ll pass out. He’s also focusing on Fred. The last thing he wants to do is send Roger into another anxiety attack, but he needs to pull him out of his one.

“How are you?”

He wants to hit himself. That was the dumbest possible question to ask. Roger makes a shaky hand gesture.

“Want to get off the floor?”

Roger shakes his head.

Fred settles across from him. They’re nearly touching. The kitchen is too small for two grown men to do this, but the important thing Fred manages to find a position that won’t make him cramp and there’s no possibility of him touching Roger. Right now, Roger seems hyper-aware of his personal space and his body is curved away from Freddie. That hurts but if it makes Rog feel better, he won’t complain.

There’s no telling how much time passes. The apple has completely browned.

“Sorry,” Roger mumbles.

He jumps at the sudden sound. Freddie has grown used to the silence.

“Don’t apologize. You’ve done nothing that needs to be forgiven.”

_Other than scaring me half to death._

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Roger’s body language screams no, “I should.”

“That wasn’t the question,” Fred says softly.

Roger tilts his head, he’s fully focused but tensed like he’s about to bolt.

“You’d drop it? If I said no?”

Fred sighs, it’s best to be honest, “for now. For a while even. But you yourself said you should talk about it. I’m not going to make you.”

Roger presses an arm over his face. Freddie watches him. Only now does he realize that Roger lets his emotions show because right now he doesn’t know a single thing going on in Roger’s head. He wants to push but Roger might be too close to the edge and he’s already promised that he wouldn’t.

“I don’t know why it’s bothering me,” Roger says slowly, “nothing happened.”

Freddie stays quiet and swallows a hundred questions that rise.

“It did, but it didn’t.”

It mostly sounds like Roger is talking to himself and it’s not helping calm Freddie’s nerves at all. Roger’s jaw tightens and he makes eye contact with Fred.

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“I swear.”

Fred knows Roger is analyzing him. He can see the thoughts and he remembers what Brian once told him.

_“Roger loves easily and deeply but you’ll know when he decides to trust you.”_

“Saturday,” the word is spit, “there was this girl… I was. I was interested then I wasn’t. I thought. Part of me thought I would be again.”

Roger stops. Fred keeps his face very neutral. He feels sick because he thinks he knows where this is going (it’s been his suspicion the entire time).

“And we started! But I wasn’t…there was this moment. I told her to. Stop. She did! Eventually.”

His stomach twists up into his heart. He can’t decide which emotion he feels strongest. He’s angry and worried but at the extreme ends of the spectrum. None of it shows on his face. Roger wouldn’t be able to determine that the anger wasn’t directed at him. Fred wants no misunderstanding.

“It’s not…the fact…and she did! She stopped. But it’s not that,” Roger’s breathing picks up.

“Feel free to stop, if you need to,” Fred says, “only say what you’re comfortable with telling me.”

Roger nods grateful and buries his face into his knees.

“Am I allowed to hug you?”

“Please don’t.”

Fred leans back, giving Roger as much space as he needs. There’s more to the story. All he wants to do is find this woman and… he’s not actually sure what he’d do. He still has the urge to wrap Roger up in blankets and hold him until he stops hurting. That’s more for his own comfort, obviously since Roger already said no.

That choice needs to be respected.

Although now that he’s gotten the truth out of Roger and considering Roger’s emotional state he _doesn’t_ feel comfortable leaving him alone. Fred thinks, the thesis meeting isn’t something he can skip but that’s at half past 16:00. The lecture is one he can afford to miss. All he’ll tell Deaky is it got canceled.

 _Christ,_ he’s made Roger’s emotional state worse and the other two are bound to notice. He won’t tell because Roger made him swear he wouldn’t, but Fred knows the others are going to ask.

This is a right mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnnd let me know what you all think! Also, if you want to yell at me (please don't I'm a delicate bean) I made a queen specific Tumblr https://sammyspreadyourwings.tumblr.com/ I'm super chill!


	8. You thought I was done with the Anxiety? Me too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll maybe have one more update this week? But's it's super busy because of the holidays. I know I'll have one almost directly after! So a shorter chapter with a solid plot development is my gift to y'all.

Monday night comes with Roger and Freddie huddled together in Roger’s bedroom. They’re whispering seriously, and John only pops his head in to ask how Roger was feeling.

“Fever’s stayed low all day.”

* * *

The Fever broke early Tuesday morning.

“You should stay home own more day,” Brian begs, “just so you don’t catch ill again.”

“I don’t have class on Wednesday,” Roger argues.

Fred frowns, “please.”

“Okay.”

John wonders if Roger’s feeling as well as he’s acting since he gave in too easily.

* * *

Roger is driving all of them nuts on Wednesday. Apparently, he’s spent his day alone writing a song, it’s good but he’s a little too energetic about it. John is ecstatic that Roger is healthy again, but he doesn’t think they’re in the clear yet.

The only serious conversation he’s seen Roger have is with Fred. Brian took his warning too serious and now he’s acting in an aloof-caring way. He doesn’t think the best friends have spent ten minutes alone.

He can only guess at what caused this retreat into Roger’s shell. If it’s still a problem on Sunday he’ll ask about it. Fred knows what the problem is because he’s surprisingly careful about his words around Roger.

If Fred is keeping something secret then it must be serious.

Naturally, it all goes to hell on Thursday when Fred isn’t around.

* * *

Brian is tucked into the corner of the sofa his feet spilling out onto the center cushion. Roger’s feet are mere centimeters away from his. He notes with increasing worry this is the closest he’s been since Sunday night and the closest anyone (that he’s aware of) in the same amount of time.

John told him to back off, but Brian feels like he is about fifteen hours from damning it to hell and asking. This isn’t Roger. In the three years they’ve known each other they’ve _never_ watched TV centimeters apart.

Not that they’re watching much of it. Brian is in the middle of an application essay for graduate programs and Roger is presumably on Twitter. There’s companionable silence. Brian pauses his typing as John leans over his shoulder.

“Your wording is making your position weak. It’s like this was a last minute decision.”

It’s always been the secondary priority since Queen started picking up popularity. They all know that.

“Not strong enough?”

“Lacks conviction,” John hums, “what would one even do with a bachelor’s degree in astrophysics?”

“Apply for a teaching license?” Roger chirps.

“Clever,” Brian sticks is tongue out at Roger.

“Truthful.”

John laughs and settles on the floor in front of Brian, who frowns. Since Roger’s illness, they’ve fallen out of sync. John has gone back to maintaining a polite distance from the three of them, nearer than week one but there was a distinct lack of contact. Brian gets annoyed when Fred’s hugs that last longer than twenty seconds. Freddie is sullen. Roger is vacant.

This is the closest to normal they’ve felt since Saturday. Brian thinks it’s just a mood until Roger flings his phone across the room. John jumps and Brian turns towards their drummer.

“Shit,” then Roger inhales one long stuttering breath.

Brian doesn’t get the chance to move before the panic attack hits. He knows the work up to them. They always have a warning and he doesn’t think he missed it with Roger sitting next to him. There’s no time to figure out how or why as he listens to another set of uneven breathing. His hands automatically move to Roger’s, it grounds the blond or at least that’s what Roger’s told him.

Brian doesn’t expect the flinch on contact, or the fact that it makes the attack _worse._

John, who's never seen this, looks to him and Brian looks back helplessly. He can count on one hand the number of times that Roger’s rejected physical contact, and never in the middle of a panic attack. Brian sees Roger spiraling and Brian panics because he doesn’t know what to do; it feels like the first time he helped Roger through an attack. His voice is too shaky to sing and unlike everytime else, Brian doesn’t know the trigger.

“Roger, hey.”

His voice is sharp and even. John stiffens in reflex. Roger doesn’t react and his breath shortens. He knows Roger will pass out at this rate.

“It’s going to be okay, trust me. Just listen to my voice.”

* * *

Roger can’t breathe. He’s inhaling and forgetting to breath out except when he breathes in he’s not getting enough air and _oh god_ the room is spinning and closing in on him.

His chest is on fire.

There’s a loud ringing in his hears. He forces his hands to move to cover his ears and presses the palms tightly against his head. His fingers tangle in his hair. The tugging feeling centers him but then he has to remember how to breathe.

Brian is a blurred form in front of him. Roger can’t hear what he’s saying. Faintly he knows Brian had grabbed his wrist. It feels like he’s flying apart at the seams. He needs something…but he can’t…but it’s _Brian._ God, he feels like he’s going to die and Brian is in front of him. Itchy skin is so much better than this.

Roger strains to pull his hand from his hair. He grabs one of Brian’s hands, Brian quickly folds their fingers together. It’s warm and itchy but he can focus on it. The ringing and the spinning are things he’s slowly able to push away. He hasn’t had an attack like this in years- he forces the thought away to only focus on the points where the pads of Brian’s fingers are touching.

He’s not sure how long he holds Brian’s had for.

Eventually, his hearing starts to return. He hears snippets of Brian’s voice. Roger begins to mirror Brian’s breathing, which seems a little exaggerated.

“There you are,” Brian’s voice sounds raspy.

Roger takes a long slow inhale and _wow_ oxygen is fantastic. He is still shaking, and his eyes are sticky. Then it feels like his strings are cut and he collapses into Brian. With how he feels, he could’ve run a marathon and felt less like he ran a marathon. The shaking turns to full body trembling and Brian wraps his arms around him. Roger wants to move away, but Brian is warm. There’s a war in his head.

_No touching. Brian is safe. I don’t want to be touched. Brian won’t hurt you._

“Better than?”

Roger wants to be snarky and say anything is better than that. But not everything is. So he shakes his head. That’s when he notices Deaky in the room, who is wide-eyed and tearful. _Oh no, John saw that._

“Hey, it’s fine.”

Brian’s voice is firm but gentle and Roger automatically relaxes.

“You can trust John.”

Roger does trust John, that’s not in question. But now everyone has seen him at his weakest. They know he isn’t _easy._ Now they’re going to-

Brian taps softly against his head, “hey, John’s okay?”

John looks like he’s ready to be hurt. Roger knows that John would leave with no complaints or questions and he’d leave willingly. He nods. It makes all the difference.

“Want to nap then talk or talk then sleep?”

Roger is too close to the edge. His nerves are still lighting up like a firework display. If he talks about it he’ll just have another panic attack.

“Sleep.”

He’s grateful that he’s so close to Brian’s ear. No one would have heard him otherwise.

There’s a rumble from Brian’s chest as he speaks, “want to go to the bedroom?”

Roger nods and slowly climbs out of Brian’s lap. His body feels heavy and he almost wants to stay in the living room. Except. No. Because it’s a little too open for his frayed nerves to let him sleep comfortably. Although making it to the bedroom might as well be an Olympic feat. Brian stands with him and hesitates before Roger leans into him. He knows he can’t make it to his bed alone. They walk slowly, Brian doesn’t touch him beyond what Roger initiates.

He practically drops to the bed. There’s a tug of the blankets beneath him and then they’re draped over him. Roger reaches out and wraps a hand softly around Brian’s wrist.

“Stay?”

“Above the covers?”

“Yes please.”

It’s childish and he half expects Brian to reject him, but he’s pleasantly surprised when the guitarist just lays down next to him. Normally Brian turns his back towards Roger, but this time he doesn’t. There’s no way Roger is going to turn his back against anyone. They lay face-to-face and they’re close because it’s a small bed. The nearness isn’t uncomfortable.

* * *

John watches the two vanish down the hallway. His own heart rate is decreasing, he thinks that was its own form of anxiety. He’s never seen a panic attack in person and he never wants to again. But if it’s Roger, he’ll help,

For all that had been Roger, that wasn’t Roger. John has never thought that Roger could be that afraid and he hates that he had no idea to help. If Brian hadn’t been around, John thinks he would’ve had his own panic attack. It was like Roger couldn’t _breathe._ He was drowning on land. For the first time in months his hands are shaking, they haven’t shaken this bad since Freddie pulled him into a room and said: “play us a tune, darling.”

John picks himself up. He moves over to where he saw Roger’s phone land. It’s a miracle that the screen didn’t shatter. The case didn’t survive, but he’s glad to see that it did its job. John wakes the phone up to make sure that it works. To his relief, it lights up with no problem. The picture of Roger and himself at one of their first gig greets him. He smiles at the memory. Roger had done everything to make him feel welcome.

The phone vibrates, and he checks it on reflex.

> **Amy Davis**
> 
> _Whore._

What?

It’s a DM from twitter. John frowns. The name is unfamiliar to him, and while he didn’t know half of the partners Roger brought home, he doesn’t remember Roger telling anyone of an encounter ending badly. So he doesn’t understand the hostility.

Apparently, he’s been staring off into space because the phone vibrates again, and once more he looks down on reflex.

> **Amy Davis**
> 
> _Can’t answer me because you’re too busy sucking dick?_

Okay. That’s uncalled for. John feels anger bubble to the surface. This feels like it’s a little more than a jilted lover, considering Roger hasn’t dated anyone long enough for them to become jilted. Of course, that could be the problem… but John is still offended because Roger hates when his sexual history gets brought up. He wants to set the phone down and ignore it. Roger can deal with his problems on his own time.

Of course, the phone buzzes one more time. John tries to fight down the urge to look, but something tells him that he needs to look. He’ll apologize to Roger later.

> **Amy Davis**
> 
> _Should’ve made you stay. Maybe you would’ve wanted it then._

John feels sick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnnd all the boys know. Let me know what you think in the comments below! Or yell at me on tumblr, the link of which is in the first chapters A/N and chapter 7's A/N.


	9. Blanket Conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In theory, this starts the wind-down.  
> In theory, I've been wrong before.

Roger wakes up with a splitting headache. Most of his hangovers aren’t this bad. He almost wishes he had something to drink. It’d be helpful, but he doubts Brian would let him. Brian barely lets him smoke, much less use alcohol as an emotional crutch.

_“That’s how it becomes an addiction,” Brian would say._

Brian has this thing about even though they’re rock stars they shouldn’t embrace the entire lifestyle. Roger knows it makes sense, but everything would be easier right now if he had at least one shot in him. He whines.

“Hey,” Brian says softly.

Roger blinks open his eyes, “hey.”

“John is preparing tea.”

Not that he thought he could get out of this conversation, but he frowns at the reminder. He gives Brian a hopeful and pleading look. It’s low because he knows Brian feels bad about denying him things, but it doesn’t work for once. Brian’s face is still calm but there is a stern set to it.

“We have to talk about this.”

“We have to?” Roger doesn’t really think they need to.

He panicked. Brian fixed it. Everything is fine.

“Yes, you…there’s… Rog, I know when there’s something wrong. I should’ve asked about it earlier.”

“Bri, I don’t know if I _can_ talk about it.”

Brian nods, “I know. Let's just talk about what you’re comfortable with and what set you off so we can avoid it.

“What if I’m uncomfortable talking about it at all?”

Brian tilts his head as if he hadn’t thought about this outcome, _this_ has never been an outcome. Roger tells Brian everything. Although, it’s a lie on Roger’s part. He’s already told Fred, and he can get away with telling Brian the same amount. Besides Brian should be easier because it’s _Brian._ But there’s so much more to lose with Brian. Roger pulls the covers over his head. He hears a soft sigh and Roger bites his cheek.

“Can I tell you from under here?”

“If you want to.”

Roger plays with a loose thread on his shirt, “get John.”

“Okay.”

He listens to Brian’s footsteps fade. All he wants to do is hide in his room for the foreseeable future and never talk about this again. Telling the two at one time makes his chest feel achy, but since he never wants to talk about this again it might as well only be twice. Truthfully, he probably would have managed with just once, except Amy had found him on Twitter.

Roger doesn’t understand _why._ It’d been a bad night and there had been no problem with _her_ , but she doesn’t want to let it go. He tries to block out the image of her in the jacket he had left behind and nothing else, the thought is burned into his brain. He doesn’t even know what the rest of the message said, because he flung his phone across the room.

“Rog?”

“Yeah.”

He hears twin footsteps and lifts the blanket enough to see Brian and John settle in front of him. This is officially his last chance to back out. There’s this sickening twist in his stomach that makes him think that telling them is how he gets kicked out of the band. This is a bed of his own making, sleeping around as he does. It was only a matter of time. Really, it shouldn’t _bother_ him this much. Nothing did happen, but he can’t stop playing out the reality that Amy didn’t stop. That the next time he sees her she _won’t._

He said no once, and now it almost feels like he’s been backed into another corner because he _feels_ obligated to talk to Brian. At least with Fred, he got the option to just have the panic attack and suffer in silence. It won’t stop the nightmares or the itchy feeling under his skin. Right now, he’s just being high maintenance after being sick, and it’s such a far cry from being _easy._ There’s a very quiet insistent part of him that keeps reminding him that Brian is the gentlest soul on the planet and if there’s anyone that Roger is safe with, it’s Brian.

John is a very close second in terms of soft souls.

“Take your time, Rog.”

He pulls the blanket back down and he’s enveloped by darkness. The blanket is thin enough some light gets through, it tints everything red. Roger knows the words he should say, but they’re the truth and he doesn’t think he’s ready to put the word to what almost happened to him.

_You love the idea of being used._

It makes him gag. He hates this. Hates feeling like his nerves are the wires John leaves around, frayed and exposed. Roger has always been comfortable in his body, but now it feels tight and even the sheets make him feel itchy. He could bathe for an hour and still feel like Amy’s nails are raking down his back.

Fuck being scared.

Roger opens his mouth and instead of the words, he wants to say his breath hitches. His eyes sting and he wants to cry. It’s like his voice has been stolen from him like his choice almost was. How’s he supposed to do this? How did he manage with Fred?

He didn’t start the conversation!

“Can you. One of you,” he bites down on his lip.

“What do you mean?” Brian asks.

“Start the- start this.”

He hears a noise of understanding. John and Brian talk amongst themselves. Roger feels a tug at the blanket.

“Do you want to leave this down?”

“For now.”

“Okay.”

For a minute he thinks that they aren’t going to have this conversation unless they can see him. That might take a while because he doesn’t even want to look at himself.

“Who is Amy?”

His heart skips. He doesn’t know how John knows that name and he hates that he does because that means John has dug around in his private life.

“How do you-?”

“Accidentally, I promise,” it _sounds_ genuine, “I picked up your phone from where you threw it and on reflex I looked down when it went off.”

Roger relaxes. It wouldn’t surprise him to learn that Amy kept messaging after that first initial message. John isn’t one to dig through peoples lives in the first place. So really, Amy probably sent something that made John connect the dots. This makes the conversation both infinitely easier and impossible at the same time.

“She’s the… person,” Roger inhales and tries to keep his breathing steady, “the one I went home with on Saturday.”

He pauses for a beat.

“And that… didn’t go as planned.”

“Bad sex?” Brian sounds confused.

“In a sense…”

Roger hears the floorboard creak and he thinks that someone is about to touch him. Automatically he coils and pulls into himself. The touching during a panic attack was one thing, but right now it would send him right back into one. He’s so tired of feeling like he’s going to break apart at the smallest touch. Yesterday, he felt like he was on top of the world like he could start to put this entire hell week behind him.

“Rog?”

“Sorry.”

“Why is she harassing you?” John whispers, “your phone is still going off.”

“Can you block her?” He doesn’t think he could stomach seeing her face.

“Of course.”

There’s silence for a few minutes. Roger digs his nails into his palm until the crescents start bleeding. It helps to ground him, and he probably should stop that before it becomes a habit and Brian scolds him for it. The pain makes him feel real and reminds him that he can handle tough things. Hopefully, the feeling will last for the rest of the conversation. It’s dragging on, and Roger wants it done no matter how the words stick in his throat. He’ll rip the band-aid off.

“She wanted sex, and at first I did too. But I just sort of didn’t while we were on the way to her place,” Roger digs his nails in harder, “and she started it. I told her to stop but she kept going on, and I had to repeat it. She did, eventually. And she wasn’t happy about it.”

“Roger, were you-” It sort of sounds like Brian is gagging.

He can’t say the word. Roger understands that all too well, so he spares Brian that.

“We didn’t get too far.” It’s neither a denial or a confirmation.

“Shit.”

Roger can’t stop the hysterical laughter the bubbles up. John and Brian are so rarely in sync that it figures that this would be the one time they are. It’s also because both of them so rarely curse that makes this so much funnier. It’s not funny at all. He’s at the limit of being able to stop his reaction to things. Any more and he’s just going to shut down.

“I’ll block her from the Queen pages too,” John says, “and I’m sure Brian and Freddie won’t have a problem with blocking her from their stuff either.”

“Not at all,” Brian agrees.

“Roger, do you want to do anything?”

“There’s no proof, and no one is going to believe me over her anyway. What guy… you know the statistics about these things.”

He uncurls his fists at they’re tight. Roger has the insane urge to beat on his drums until his hands are raw from the sticks and his body is too exhausted to feel anything. But that would involve leaving his little cocoon of safety.

“I don’t know what to do.”

It slips from his lips. He wants to take it back. The words sound as though they’re as strong as the last petal on a rose. Roger thinks he’d hear this kind of vulnerability in one of Freddie’s ballads and from his voice. Everything is too close to the surface and he doesn’t know what to push down and what to let show.

Which emotion does he want to feel fear or anger or hurt? Does he cry or yell? Can he just accept it, or will he fight it?

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Brian says just as vulnerable, “we’ll help you.”

“You can’t do that.”

Roger closes his eyes because he knows he can’t stop the words. The blanket is a blessing because he doesn’t know what kind of faces his friends are making.

“If you do that then I’m not _easy,_ I’m just some _whore_ who likes being _used._ ”

“Roger Taylor!”

He jumps and ends up pulling the blanket off his head. John has _never_ yelled like that before. Roger blinks as he takes in the watery eyes and the anger reddened cheeks. It sort of feels like this is an alternate universe or better yet this is a dream which means he’ll wake up and not remember it. Brian will make fun of him for looking exhausted despite getting a full eight hours of sleep. It’s hard to believe that he complained about Freddie’s nitpicks.

If he had just fixed himself then-

“Listen to me,” John isn’t yelling but his voice demands the attention of a yell.

Roger slowly meets his eyes.

“Whatever she said to you was a lie. Don’t believe her.”

Roger snorts. John inches his way to the bed.

“You can’t let her win. If you let her destroy you, nothing else matters. Listen to me and believe me when I tell you that you are not a whore. Maybe you like sex and maybe you have a submissive streak, but that doesn’t mean you like being used.”

He inches away from the force of John’s voice.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to,” John backpedals.

Brian hasn’t said anything, so Roger glances at him. His lips are pressed together in a thin line and it looks like he can’t decide if he wants to cry or get angry. The room feels awkward and Roger curses himself and everything because these are two of the people he’s supposed to feel most comfortable with and in one night one person has managed to ruin that.

“No. It’s. It’s just a lot,” Roger finally mumbles.

John nods slowly still winding down from his outburst. Brian shakes his head and he seems to be rejoining the conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, temper from John? A little bit of a too pushy Bri? Whatever will you all do?  
> It ends abruptly, but it felt too disjointed to be one cohesive chapter, so yeah. As always, leave your thoughts and comments below!  
> Shameless self-promote, but Eighth Notes is my newest story so if you want, go check it out and let me know how you all like it!  
> Additional self-promote: https://sammyspreadyourwings.tumblr.com/  
> Come talk to me!


	10. Small Talks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! Welcome back, and I'm going to take a moment to thank everyone who has commented! I do read them all and I think every single comment has made me smile. So I'm really grateful to you all for enjoying my works!

Brian isn’t sure what he had expected when he started this conversation. The truth is so far away from what he imagined that he misses John’s outburst. It sounds like bees are buzzing in his ears. Roger’s eyes are darting from him and John. This entire conversation feels like it’s a dream, the way he feels so detached from it. He knows that things like this happen, but he _never_ thought it would happen to someone close to him. Much less Roger.

Now he doesn’t know what to do. Roger doesn’t want him to do anything, but he can’t help but feel like there’s something he needs to do.

“Don’t… don’t make this a thing,” Roger says quietly, “it happened, I want to move on.”

“If that’s what you want…” Brian trails off.

He can’t make Roger talk about it, or even deal with what happened, but he thinks that this might not be the best way to heal from it. Brian knows forcing the issue might have an adverse effect. This is uncharted water for him, he wishes that emotions were like formulas and all he had to do is place values. Emotions aren’t formulas, and people can’t be expected to behave like them. This is Roger, so Brian’s going to figure out how… he doesn’t know if he can fix this or if there’s anything _to_ fix since Roger isn’t broken, but he’s going to figure out how to make Roger not hurt.

“It is what I want,” Roger says.

He sounds confident and sure, but Brian can see the tiny flick of fear in the otherwise clear blue eyes. John stands and Brian and Roger follow the movement with there eyes.

“I’m going to get the tea.”

Brian nods and as soon as the door closes Roger sags. He flops from where he was sitting up and lets out a strained sigh. The urge to hug him is overwhelming, but he keeps himself at that same respectful distance that Roger’s silently deemed okay. A few minutes pass, and Brian figures that John excused himself to give them their own private time. There’s no doubt that they were the closest in the band.

“Rog?”

The blond shakes his head.

“Your hands are bleeding,” Brian notes.

Roger looks down at them, “I guess they are.”

“Do you- May I,” Brian shakes his head, “Should I go and get something to clean them?”

“Yeah,” Roger bites his lip.

Brian makes a quick exit to the bathroom. He grabs a wash rag and a tube of antibiotic cream. The rag is wet with warm water, and as Brian exits he can hear John in the kitchen. Freddie should be home soon and should be able to help John with whatever comfort he needs. It doesn’t make Brian feel any less bad about having to choose to comfort.

He knocks on the door to let Roger know he’s coming back in the room. Roger hasn’t moved but he’s unwound slightly. Brian kneels before him and holds up the tools.

“Do you want me to do this or do you want to?”

Roger tilts his head and then slowly extends on hand. Brian spends a clinically short time running the rag over the tiny cuts. He doesn’t dwell on what caused them, he’s just glad they aren’t bad. The ointment is dabbed on and Roger rubs it in on his own. The process is repeated on the second hand. They look at each other and Roger ducks his head.

“I’m sorry for all of this but thank you.”

“Don’t apologize,” Brian says, “doing this for you isn’t a burden, I swear.”

Roger looks up and away. Brain waits for Roger to look back at him before he speaks. It takes a couple of minutes but eventually he sees the blue eyes again.

“Remember a couple of months ago when I asked you to trust me?”

He nods.

“That still applies, whatever you want, whatever you need, all you have to do is ask,” Brian keeps his voice soft, “if you want me to leave or stop something or even if you want me to do something for you.”

“Bri,” Roger purses his lips, “this might not be something that goes away.”

“Okay,” Brian says swiftly and surely, “we can work with it or around it.”

Roger blinks in disbelief.

Brian feels his heart sink, but he still presses on, “Roger we’re best friends. That’s not going to change. Trust me?”

It might be asking for a lot, Brian realizes. He wishes he knew if he was messing this all up. The last thing he wants to do is cause any more stress for Roger to deal with. He might be making too big of assumptions, but there has to still be some degree of trust between them or he doubts Roger would have let him touch him during the panic attack or to clean his hands.

“I do,” Roger says barely above a breath.

“Then we’ll figure this out.”

* * *

John almost feels like a coward for escaping the room minutes after he lost his temper like that. It wasn’t even that he was mad at Roger. He’s the last person John is mad at. The tea from before has gone cold because Brian didn’t give him a chance to keep it warm before dragging him to Roger’s bedroom.

He goes through the process slower and more methodical that he usually does. Once the kettle is boiling (he opted for the traditional kettle rather than the electric one), John sits at the table and presses his palms to his eyes. Part of him had started to put the dots together once he had enough of them, but he had hoped that it was just Roger mood and nothing as serious as this.

He can’t stop thinking about the girl that this happened to in his high school. They hadn’t been friends, but they had music together and a love of dancing. Often they would talk about the latest dance trend, the girl was excellent at ballet and she wanted to dance at the royal ballet someday. John only knows what happened to her because he had been at that same party, their football team had managed a third-place victory at a tournament, so most the school showed up. He’d only been there because the girl he had a crush on wanted to go and he was her ride, but he saw his friend run out of the house crying. The rumors started after that.

He passed her house one afternoon coming home from something and saw her throw out her ballet slippers. John was never sure the two were connected, but he’s always thought that they might be. She didn’t really talk to anyone after that day, and he regrets not asking how she was.

The only thing that had been going through his head after Roger told them is that he didn’t want to wake up one morning and see Roger’s kit out by the trash. Music, for all that people say it’s a hobby, helps to make Roger, well, Roger. Just as much as the shifting moods and explosive anger and the boundless kindness and energy made up Roger. John hates even considering what Roger would be without music.

The whistling of the kettle shakes him out of his thoughts and he sets to work fixing the tea.

By the time he’s finished half an hour has passed and he’s calmed down significantly. He walks up to Roger and Brian’s room and into the familiar sight of Brian playing on one of his acoustic guitars and singing. It’s a little surprising that he’s doing it now of all times, but Brian just smiles and doesn’t interrupt his playing, Roger isn’t hiding under the blanket any longer but watching Brian’s fingers on the neck of the guitar.

“You know that’s not how the original song goes,” John comments after he hands Roger his cup.

Brian strums through the chorus of the song. John isn’t sure where he’s heard it before but he knows how it goes for the most part.

“Yeah, well,” Brian replies.

John doesn’t think Brian has the ego to say something sounds better but like most of the guitarists he’s met, they always have to spin a song their own way. Freddie has nearly broken the habit of adlibbing during their songs, but sometimes the change is nice, especially if it’s covering for something else going wrong. Eventually, the last few notes trail through the room.

“I need to take a quiz online, so I’m going to the kitchen,” Brian grabs his cup, “let me know if you need anything?”

The question is directed to the both of him, but John can tell it’s meant more for Roger than him. John swallows the last dredge of his tea as he tries to gauge Roger’s mood. It seems better after Brian’s impromptu concert so John isn’t willing to ruin it.

“Why’d you get so mad earlier?”

He’s not sure he’s heard Roger until he sees shimmering blue eyes. John had worried that Roger would have taken his anger the wrong way.

“I wasn’t mad at you,” John replies.

“But why’d you get mad in the first place?” Roger’s guard is a little lower.

“Because the way you were talking made me think that you wanted to quit the band.”

Roger tilts his head, “there are other drummers.”

“Sure, but they aren’t you,” John shrugs, they’ve all had this insecurity (except maybe Freddie but it’s Freddie), “and I was more upset at the thought of you giving up music completely rather than you leaving the band.”

Roger doesn’t say anything, and John thinks he’s misspoken again, so he tries to clarify, “what I mean to say, is that if you thought quitting the band and music is what was best for you, we would let you if that’s what you really wanted. But I didn’t want you to give up because of one single woman.”

“Oh,” Roger smiles a little, it’s not the beaming bright grin John loves, but it’s better than anything he’s seen today, “I don’t think I _could_ give up music.”

John snorts, “you’d probably end up making drum tracks while drilling on some poor sods cavity.”

Roger releases a breathy laugh, “you know I’m not in dentistry anymore.”

“And the world thanks you for that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, leave your thoughts below, or message me on tumblr! Last chapter and this one gave me some fits because they feel a little disjointed with the rest of the work. 
> 
> Otherwise, we're wrapping this story up in three chapters + an epilogue (arguably I could make this a series and fill some bits in with one-shots but no promises)! We're starting weekly updates, so this one will be Tuesday and if you're following Eight Notes, that one will be updated on Thursday!


	11. Expectations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's technically Tuesday. So as promised Chapter 11! Enjoy!

Freddie enters the flat at half past three am. He doesn’t think his bandmates will be up, especially since he’s sure that Roger wouldn’t have gone out on a Thursday night. Part of him reminds him that Roger probably wouldn’t be going out for a while yet. Fred still hasn’t figured out how to deal with what’s been admitted to him, and the fact that he has to keep it a secret from Brian and John. He is shit at keeping secrets and now he has to strategize around two of the smartest people he’s ever met.

It’s why he was gone all evening. He went to the library to research the best ways to help Roger through this since the blond is adamant about not talking. Freddie’s barely been able to corner him for a conversation all week, so left with no other choice he had to make a plan so Roger has at least one person in his corner until he was ready to tell the other two.

Considering everything on his mind, he’s not paying the most attention. He flicks the light on in the hallway and turns to enter the kitchen. There’s a person sitting at the table, and after he calms down from the fight it causes he realizes that it’s John.

“What are you doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” John mumbles.

“I can see that. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be lurking-”

“I’m not lurking.”

“In the kitchen at this hour. You’re the last person to lose sleep.”

John runs a hand through his hair. If Freddie were to guess, he would think that John’s been doing nothing but that all evening. The hair is sticking up at odd angles and is greasy. He can physically see how tight John’s shoulders are. Freddie is about to ask another question.

“You know what happened to Roger last Saturday.”

It’s a statement, and Freddie feels a pit form in his stomach, “yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Wasn’t mine to tell,” Freddie answers, “I guess you found out?”

“Yeah, after he damn near passed out because that woman kept harassing him.”

He’s never heard John that angry before. Freddie feels the chill and he reminds himself to keep out of trouble and to not make John this angry at him ever.

“I didn’t know she was…” Freddie sits down across from John, “if she had, I would have… I don’t know… done something.”

John eyes him and then sighs, “it’s a matter of band security if she had come to our gig this Saturday…”

They both meet each other’s eyes. In their concern over Roger and the stresses in their daily lives, they had nearly forgotten they were scheduled to play. Thankfully it’s a different bar than last Saturdays, but this one has been better advertised. The owner told them that they had sold out, the first time in their budding career.

Everyone had been excited to play.

“Roger is going to play,” Freddie says with determination.

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” John replies, “Roger is going to think he’ll be able to play, but if he has another panic attack or that woman shows up.”

Freddie tilts his head, “we can’t cancel on maybes.”

“We have to keep Roger’s wellbeing in mind!” John’s voice raises in volume.

He worries that they’re going to wake one of the other two up, mainly Roger.

“We aren’t… we aren’t Queen if it isn’t the four of us. It would be the same if it were Brian or you or me.”

“If we give this up, there’s going to be a lot of people disappointed and we won’t be able to recover. This may kill us before we’ve even soared, darling.”

John eyes him, “and if Roger says he can’t? Because I don’t think he’s handling this as well as we think he is.”

“He won’t. He wants this as much as any of this.”

“You can’t be certain about everything Fred.”

“And you can’t plan for every failure John.”

They stare at each other. John’s fingers tap out a nervous rhythm on the table. Freddie knows Roger, and he knows that the blond can and will fight through anything in order to play music. It might be a problem if his health was at stake, any of them would step in and stop him before he gets too reckless. He just thinks that this is something the blond needs to work through. As harsh as he sounds to himself, Roger is going to have to live with this.

The proof is in the fact that he’s only had two setbacks in the week he’s had to heal. Freddie vaguely wonders if that’s healthy, but again he doesn’t think Roger is anywhere near crashing and burning. He’ll talk to the blond, seriously, tomorrow.

“You said she’s been harassing him?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a picture of her?”

“I know her social media, but Brian and I blocked her, and I blocked her from Roger.”

Freddie nods, “well, we’ll show her picture to the owner and say she’s not allowed in because of harassment, they’ll probably keep her out. Or she might not show, more talk than anything.”

John seems doubtful.

“It’s the best we can do for now,” Freddie says, “you want to play Saturday, don’t you?”

“Of course, I do,” John answers, “but I don’t want to play at the expense of a bandmate.”

“And if Roger agrees, no holds, I tell him everything?”

“I won’t like it… but it’s ultimately Roger’s choice.”

Freddie leans back, pleased that John’s come around. He knows the other means well, but they’re trying to make it big. There’s going to be setbacks, and he really won’t force Roger to play if he doesn’t feel like he can, but he doesn’t want to protect Roger from things he doesn’t need protecting from. That’ll just piss the drummer off. Brian is going to have a similar argument he knows, and it’ll be harder to convince him.

He’ll just have to make sure Roger is fully onboard before that confrontation.

* * *

Freddie waits until both John and Brian have gone to their lectures after their own lectures about him skipping class ( _we’re going to be rock stars, what good is uni?)_. Roger is back from his for the day and he’s happily curled up in the armchair across from Freddie. Romeo has taken advantage of the lap and is currently sleeping while Roger scratches his ears.

“Rog,” he calls softly.

“Hm?” Roger stares at a spot on the wall.

“Can you look at me, darling?”

Roger shakes his head as if clearing it, “yeah?”

“I have to talk-”

“I don’t want to talk about _it,_ Fred. I told John and Brian that much.”

“That’s not what I was going to bring up,” Freddie answers.

Roger flushes, “sorry. It’s just that. Everyone’s been giving me these _looks_ like I’m going to fly off the handle.”

“You tend to do that,” Freddie points out, “and they’re just concerned.”

“What did you need to talk about?”

Freddie frowns. John might have a point about Roger not handling this. He can’t stop Roger from sweeping it under the rug, but he won’t prod at the open wounds. Maybe when it wasn’t so fresh or maybe Roger doesn’t need to talk about it.

“We have a gig tomorrow.”

Roger’s eyes widen, “oh right. The sold-out one, yeah?”

“That’s the one,” Freddie smiles, “just wanted to make sure you’re up for it?”

“Of course, I am! This is out first sold-out gig!”

Roger’s smile is blinding, and Freddie thinks that so long as he gets to see that smile everything will be alright. He’ll just have to show that he’s there for Roger in other ways. _Respect their boundaries but show that you’re there for them._ One of the books he said.

“I knew you would be,” Freddie flashes a grin with a little more tooth than usual, “but I like hearing that I’m right.”

The smile reaches his eyes even though the one on his lips has lessened. They just grin stupidly at each other for a few minutes. Then Romeo gets fussy and squirms his way out of Roger’s lap onto the ground where he bats around one of his toy mice.

“And Fred?” Roger’s voice is soft, “thank you, you know for things.”

“Of course, darling,” Freddie matches the tone, “and if you need anything or need to get out of anything, you call count on me.”

Roger inclines his head and then returns his vision to the TV. He falls asleep a couple of minutes after that. The only sound in the house is the bell on Romeo’s collar.

It’s peaceful and it makes him jump when he hears the front door open. Brian shakes the late January snow out of his hair and stomps his feet. Freddie stands gracefully to cut him off at the entryway.

“I hope you don’t have any plans to attend any parties tonight.”

Brian narrows his eyes.

“We need to be well rested for tomorrow!”

“Right, the gig,” Brian offers a small smile, “I’ll be ready.”

“We’ll all be ready.”

“We’re Queen after all.”

Freddie is a little surprised that Brian doesn’t mention anything about Roger not being able to play. He thought maybe John and Brian had coordinated their thoughts on the matter, but he guesses that if Roger didn’t think he would be able to play Brian would be the first one he goes to. Brian would be the first to know without a doubt that Roger couldn’t play. Last night might have been John’s worries manifesting and maybe Freddie isn’t missing as much as he thought based on what John implied.

He supposes tomorrow is judgment day in more than one way.

* * *

John hauls the last of the equipment onto the stage. The bar had their own speakers, but they weren’t exactly the type that could hold up to their playing, so at last minute they had to load their own as well as their equipment. Roger is testing his kit to make sure it’s sturdy.

“Did you find my other hi-hat?”

Brian shakes his head, “no,”

Roger groans and ducks down beneath the risers. John hopes that they hadn’t forgotten it at the flat. They’re already pushing set up close to the bar reopening for the night. He shifts the speaker and starts running the chord. It tosses the end towards Roger.

“Plug this in while you’re down there.”

Freddie returns from wherever he had vanished to. Roger pops back up.

“Freddie have you had that the entire time?”

“It was a better mirror than what they have in the bathroom,” Freddie grins.

“Did you use my hi-hat as a mirror?” Roger squawks.

Freddie tries to keep the symbol out of Roger’s reach, but the blond manages to snag it back. He immediately starts cleaning it with the rag that Brian tosses him. John nods at Freddie whose done his eyes up in black kohl. Musical instrument crisis averted they’re able to finish set up faster than John had hoped. Freddie leans back in a chair “supervising” while Brian and John get everything set. Roger is testing instruments for them.

Finally, Roger and Brian leave to change into something more stage appropriate, while John switches out his jackets.

“He didn’t suspect anything?” Freddie asks.

“No, but did you have to steal the hi-hat?”

“If I touched his drumsticks, he would have murdered me, then you would have been down a singer and a drummer.”

John rolls his eyes, “did your plan have to put our performance at risk?”

“There was no better way to do it,” Freddie shrugs and knocks back the rest of what John hopes to be water, “Roger doesn’t care about much else but his instrument before performances. He doesn’t even smoke.”

“That’s probably a good idea, considering it ruins your voice, and he sings,” John says pointedly.

“Let me live a little!”

“Then stop smoking.”

Freddie pouts and slumps down dramatically. John ignores him in favor of making sure that his bass was tuned. Several minutes later Brian and Roger return with their stage makeup and clothes on. It always amazes John how natural they look in the gaudy clothes they let Freddie put them in. Brian’s in another billowy shirt and tight trousers, both with gold embroidery, and Roger is wearing a tight leather vest with a black tank top underneath it. The outfit is more conservative than his usual looks, but it’s still what John guesses people would consider bad boy sexy.

“Wait,” Freddie turns around and digs through one of his bags and tosses something over to Roger.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Your neck is looking a little bare.”

Roger clasp the choker, and John is fairly certain that it came from the women’s jewelry department, but it completes the look. Especially when Roger moodily flips down his sunglasses. Brian snickers as he tunes his guitar.

“Everyone ready?”

“Ready, Freddie,” Roger calls from behind the kit, both drumsticks in hand.

“We still have an hour,” Brian comments.

“Warm-ups!”

Soon enough people start trickling in.

John doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the feeling of a crowd. This one is particularly excited and it’s larger than any they’ve played for before. He jumps around in time with his bass mostly to have something to focus on other than his own nerves. Brian is steadily playing, and John doesn’t get how he plays such a lively instrument and remain rooted to the spot. Freddie is swaying in odd ways as he belts his way through songs, sustaining notes when there usually wouldn’t be, making it a little more of a challenge to keep the singer on beat.

Roger is thriving though. Playing the drums with high precision. John knows Roger is good, but it feels like he’s really seeing the potential he has for the first time. His blond hair flashes in the low lights and sweat is beading on his forehead. There’s the million-watt grin on his face, and John stops worrying and loses himself in the bass line.

* * *

His arms are aching in ways that they never have before. Roger breathes through his nose and focuses on just making sure he hits the right drum on time. He wants to… he doesn’t know what he wants to do. Part of him wants to stop because he thought he saw _her_ and he can feel the panic building with each beat. The other part of him that reminds him that John doesn’t want him to give up music keeps him playing. When he catches any of his bandmates looking at him, he grins.

This is what he was born to do. He never knows that more clearly than when he has eyes on him while he plays himself ragged. The music flows through him differently than when he’s creating music or just playing around with the guys. It’s had to focus through the anxiety. His hands are shaking, and he’s entirely glad that he can tighten his hands onto his drumsticks and feel the woodgrain start to splinter with the force and tightness of grip. If he breaks one… well, he has extras for a reason.

From what little he can hear over the roaring in his ears and his own banging, he knows they sound good tonight. It’s a turning point, he thinks. But he feels nauseous in a way that isn’t from the nerves of performing or the two shots he downed as part of a good luck charm before the show. His eyes flicker out across the crowd and his heart jumps every time he catches a flash of dark brown hair on a woman.

At some point, the drums start sounding like the beat his heart is doing. He just needs to scream or do something and have people stop looking at him for a second.

_Easy. Used. Whore._

Thank god his legs feel like cement or he might have run off by now. He likes to think that he wouldn’t, but it’s getting harder to focus. In one last ditch effort to not ruin everything, he throws his head back with his eyes closed. The music claims him after a couple of seconds, and he has just enough courage to finish the set.

It’s a near thing. They get up, stand and smile at the crowd. He waves and then immediately ducks out of one of the service door. The cold air stings him at first, but then gradually numbs his overheated body. No one else is in the alleyway and it gives him a sense of privacy that he was lacking on stage. His legs give out and he stumbles to the grown. He very nearly avoids falling face first into a puddle.

Maybe he _can’t_ do this.

He _has_ to do this. There’s nothing he’s ever wanted more.

Roger looks up when the door opens, his heart in his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, a cliffhanger. My old friend. I remember the days when all my chapters ended in a cliffhanger. Jeez I sound old. Anywho, as always leave your thoughts below or come talk to me @sammyspreadyourwings on tumblr.  
> Also. I hope I came across with Freddie in the way I intended. He's a tough one to write. See you next Tuesday! Or we meet sooner on Thursday, if you read Eighth Notes! (It's a good chapter. Promise!)  
> Later!


	12. Bandmates and Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update, I know y'all will be so upset with me giving you the chapter early, but I'm worried that I'm going to forget with the bustle of the semester starting. Also. Good news for the cliffhanger! I was considering a mini-series set in this verse. But we'll see if I can get more done with the other things I have planned for this fandom. Anyway, y'all aren't here to listen to me. Go! Read! Enjoy!

Brian bows once more to the crowd and turns to Roger, and frowns. Roger isn’t behind his kit or next to him like he usually is after a show. He glances down the line and sees that he hasn’t overlooked Roger. The drummer was just gone. Panic starts to rise in his chest when he sees the door to the back alleyway bounce slightly. If he weren’t terrified about what that meant for Roger, he’d be impressed the blond made it all the way there in such a short time.

John is looking at the drumkit now. He needs to do damage control now. Roger was fine while they were playing, but he’s not sure about now. They don’t need to make the situation worse if there was a situation, to begin with. Brian carefully navigates some of the wires on stage and pulls both of his bandmates into a casual looking hug.

“I think Roger went out the back,” he whispers, “I’m going to go check on him but mingle a little bit or all night. I’ll head home with Roger as soon as possible.”

Freddie keeps waving and making eyes with some of the crowd members, “keep him safe, darling.”

John simply nods, “we’ll get the equipment packed up.”

With that Brian disengages the hug and attempts to stealthily sneak out the back. He’s stopped by a few new fans complementing his playing and on one distinct fan asking after Roger. Brian smiles and navigates the conversation with a grace he doesn’t usually have.

The cold surprises him when he first opens the door, but it quickly fades to the back of his mind. He doesn’t know how to handle the blatant fear in Roger’s eyes until it seems like Brian’s been recognized. Brian knows that the fear wasn’t directed at him, but rather the idea that it was a stranger or worse, but it still stings as though Roger had been afraid of them. Roger’s mouth opens and closes.

Brian’s kneeling as soon the first tear falls. His hands hesitate over Roger’s back, unsure of if his touch was currently wanted or needed. Roger’s frame trembles and this is the first time that Brian’s thought of Roger as small.

“Fuck,” Roger’s voice is raw, and it makes Brian’s own throat hurt at the sound.

“Hey, it’s all right.”

Roger’s tears stop, and his jaw tightens. Brian barely gets out of the way as Roger stands forcefully. He sees the fist tighten, and then Brian moves. He stops the fist only a few centimeters from the wall. Both Roger and Brian blink at each other in surprise. Brian drops the wrist almost immediately, but he worries the damage may have already been done. He can handle Roger lashing out at him, but he won’t let the other hurt himself.

“Fuck off Brian,” Roger growls.

Anger from Roger is nothing new, but Brian is a little surprised by the intensity of it.

“No,” Brian keeps his voice level, stern but no threat, “you could’ve broken your hand!”

Roger shakes out the appendage, “won’t do me much good.”

“Roger, you’re a drummer.”

“Not if I can’t go a set without a panic attack!”

Brian hopes their argument won’t draw any attention from any of the bar’s patrons, “you made it through it. That’s something.”

“I,” Roger bites down on his lip hard enough to make it bleed.

He’s worried for a second that Roger is going to swing for the wall. Not that Brian is in any mood to get hit in the face, but he’d rather Roger punch him and maybe only bruise his hand rather than break it. Mostly he wants to talk Roger down from his rage.

“I _can’t_ play if this is how it’s going to make me feel every time,” Roger says.

The anger is still present, Brian can tell by the tense figure and squared shoulders. He’s not sure what he should say.

“Maybe it won’t be?” Brian suggests but he’s not sure what’s set off this panic attack.

He has a pretty good guess and it makes him feel sick.

“We don’t know that!”

“So, we keep trying,” Brian’s voice raises, and he winces.

“And if I don’t want to?”

“You want to give up drumming?”

“No!”

Brian keeps the sigh inside. They’re getting nowhere and Roger is just getting more and more agitated. He inhales and holds the breath for several seconds before letting it go.

“Roger, what happened?”

“What?”

“On stage, what happened? You looked like you were fine,” Brian inches closer.

Roger’s eyes dart to the door and hen he deflates, “I thought I saw _her.”_

Brian doesn’t know if she was here, but they had tried their hardest to try and keep her away from them.

“But you were fine up until that point?”

“Yeah, it felt great. Like it always does.”

Roger doesn’t seem to be catching the hint. Brian can’t blame him, but he doesn’t want to be so blunt about it.

“And you don’t think there’s a correlation?”

“I know there is,” Roger replies, and he just sounds tired, “but I can’t stop myself from _thinking_ I see her.”

Brian’s eyes go wide in understanding.

“I think,” Roger sags against the wall and slides down it.

He doesn’t finish the statement and instead stares at the puddle in front of them. Brian leans against the other wall, content to wait for Roger to figure out what he’s trying to say, and to give the idea that he’s giving the other man space.

“I think,” Roger’s voice is shaky, “that it may… have been too soon.”

“It might have been,” Brian answers.

Roger’s had a short time to cope with what happened to him. As much as they all want it, they shouldn’t expect a miracle. Brian doesn’t know if Roger will never have leftover response to what happened. All they can do is figure out what Roger needs and how to keep the band going in the meantime. They’ll take a break if they need too, Roger’s as vital to the band as a heart to a human so there would be no point in trying to either force Roger to perform or finding a new drummer in the meantime.

Roger looks up surprised, “you’re not… upset?”

“About you not being able to play for a while? No,” Brian says, “I’m upset you’re hurting so much, that’s all.”

“I don’t… how do we… fix this?”

Brian looks towards the starts, “we cut back on the gigs, school is about to pick up anyway and Freddie is graduating, in theory, this semester. Then once you feel like you want to perform again, we go from there.”

“I don’t want to take a break,” Roger mutters moodily, “we’re getting the popularity we need.”

“Roger,” Brian says a little exasperated and a little proud at Roger’s stubbornness and strength.

“What if there’s a way to still play, but I don’t know…” Roger trails off.

“Unless you want to play when you can’t see the audience so there’s no mistaken identity…”

Roger whips his head up, “that’s it!”

Brian blinks, “what’s it?”

“I’ll figure out how to not see the audience.”

He has his doubts about this plan working, “how?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Roger’s anger has faded.

Someday, Brian will figure out Roger’s whiplash-inducing emotions, but for now, he’s glad the threat of bodily harm to either of them is gone. Roger pushes himself up and rubs a sleeve over his eyes and grins, but it fades quickly as he glances back to the bar.

“John and Freddie have got the equipment under control,” Brian says.

Roger lets out a sigh, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry we pushed you.”

“You didn’t, I thought that I could do this with no problem.”

Brian nods, “did you want to stay out here?”

“Yes, it’s private.”

“We can go back to the flat.”

Roger tilts his head, “can’t we stay out here a little longer?”

“With no coats?”

“Well,” Roger shrugs.

“You just got over being sick,” Brian sighs.

Roger inches over slowly and presses against Brian. The fabric of his sleeve doesn’t prevent him from feeling how chilled Roger’s skin is becoming. They’ve only been outside for half an hour at most.

“We can walk back if you just want to be outside,” Brian suggests.

“But the van?”

“John can drive it.”

Roger hums and closes his eyes, “okay.”

“I’ll grab our coats,” Brian pulls away slightly, “I am not letting you get sick again.

Roger laughs, “okay, mom.”

Brian enters the bar once more. He sees that John and Freddie have managed to take down the set in record time. John is hovering by the platform and perks up when he sees Brian. Freddie appears from behind him and drags him over to John.

“So how is our drummer?”

“He’s… Roger,” Brian answers, “a little shaken up but not deterred.”

“What happened?” John asks.

“I guess he thought he saw or did see that girl,” Brian replies, “he doesn’t want to slow down the gigs, but I think maybe we should. Not quit altogether, and besides midterms are soon.”

Freddie rolls his eyes, “we can slow down.”

“Roger and I are going to walk back to the flat,” Brian says after a second.

“Seriously?”

Brian laughs at Freddie’s stunned face.

“Yeah, he likes being outside.”

“But he’s okay?”

“I think he needs a little more reassurance that we aren’t going to be upset about him freaking out,” Brian shrugs, “it’ll be a long process though. Right now, I think he just likes the security of the privacy that walking home is going to give him.”

Freddie’s eyes start to gleam. Brian has a momentary surge of concern because usually the look is reserved for particularly ludicrous ideas (not limited to the time Freddie braided his hair wet and it basically became a giant knot). The time though, there’s a lack of mischievousness. John looks wary.

“Keep it sane,” Brian suggests.

“Might as well asked me to become the Queen of England.”

“But you are a Queen from England, my dear.”

Brian nimbly slips out of the hug Freddie tries to rope him into, “I’m grabbing our coats and going.”

“Brian!”

He slips out of the door before John could finish the request.

Roger is against the other wall with a cigarette between his lips. Brian curls his lips, but for once lets it slide. Although the cigarette is quickly put out and properly disposed of in the garbage can deeper in the alley.

“It’s about an hour walk?” Roger sways a little in the street.

“Something like that,” Brian rubs his arms, “let’s get going.”

The walk, despite it getting colder as the sun sets, is pleasant. Light pollution from the city makes the sky a blank canvas, and Brian can only dream of seeing what stars lay beyond the dome. Roger looks up occasionally.

“What do you see in them?”

“Endless possibility.”

Roger purses his lips and narrows his eyes as if he’s trying to figure out a particularly difficult equation.

“What do you see in Queen?”

Brian turns his gaze down towards Roger who’s peering up at him. He’s briefly reminded of when they formed Smile, how they were both amazed another musician existed that matched them.

“Endless possibility.”

Roger laughs, “sap.”

He shrugs but notices that Roger’s thoughts have turned inward. Brian wants to give him a one-armed hug but he’s sure the touch wouldn’t be welcome, and the point of this walk is to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, we're at the wind-down of this story. Anywho, as always leave your thoughts below and if you want to yell/talk whatever at me I'm @sammyspreadyourwings on tumblr!  
> ((Good news for those who are joint fans of Eighth Notes, she's getting an early update too and this chapter is one you don't want to miss!))


	13. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final Chapter!  
> Epilogue Tuesday!  
> Enjoy!

John frowns when Freddie starts to walk away from the van, “you know we have to unload the equipment, right?”

“It can survive in there for the night,” Freddie says airily.

“Not the instruments, the moisture will be hell on the guitars and I don’t want to even risk ruining Roger’s drums.”

Freddie saunters back with a frown. John hands him the case containing his bass and the picks up the Red Special’s case. Brian might murder him if something happened to the guitar, it’s a big enough show of trust that Brian lets him handle it at all. Freddie is a little too tipsy to be trusted. If he breaks the bass it’ll be an annoyance, but not devastating. They drop the cases off in the band room and return to start picking up Roger’s kit.

John can’t wait for the day that they have people doing this. He hands Freddie the various cymbals. Roger is going to have to figure out what goes where later because he knows that Freddie is just going to toss them on top of whatever flat surface there is in the band room first. It takes less time to haul the entire kit up to their flat than he thought it would. Although this time they didn’t have to deconstruct it before moving it.

Twenty minutes later he locks up the van and enters the flat only to see the hallway closet open. John almost dreads whatever Fred’s got in mind. He listens to see where their singer is causing his mayhem. It’s the living room. There is a loud thud and John hurries to see that one of the end tables is tipped over. Several pillows and blankets (did Freddie somehow manage to wrangle up every blanket in the house that wasn’t on a bed… nope that’s his comforter) are piled on the couch which has been pushed back.

“What are you doing?”

Freddie grins and pulls the end table further away, “making a fort.”

“Why?”

“Movie night!”

“Fred, Roger is probably going to be tired,” John reasons.

“No one actually watches movies on movie night!”

John realizes what Freddie means, “you want to make it feel like nothing’s changed?”

“Roger doesn’t want to talk about it, but we still need to be here for him.

“Okay, what do you need me to do?”

“Move that end table further, and maybe bring the couch forward again. We have to have a stable roof.”

John does what he’s told. It takes a combination of one queen sized sheet and a twin connected by safety pins to span the length of their foundation. Freddie tosses a few light objects and claps happily as the roof stays standing.

“Go get pillows,” Freddie orders, “as many as you can find.”

He hurries off to the closet and then to the bedrooms where he steals them off the beds. Unsurprisingly most of them come from Freddie’s. As he returns to the living room, he sees that Freddie’s taken the couch and chair cushions and made padding. He tosses one pillow which hits Fred square in the back of the head. Freddie yelps more in surprise than actual pain.

“That was rude.”

John shrugs and tosses the rest of the pillows over their entrance barrier and crawls under what Freddie terms a door. The pillows are organized in a haphazard order and the blankets are divvied up in four sections with one quilt covering the cushions. He must admit that it’s a cozy space.

Freddie rushes out of the fort a comes back with an assortment of snacks and beverages, most of which weren’t alcoholic.

“I feel like I’m ten,” John notes.

“Well,” Freddie shrugs.

He doesn’t finish the statement as they hear the front door open. Freddie rises to his feet, pulls John up who barely avoids hitting the roof of their fort. Brian is the first to enter the living room.

“What’s going on?”

Roger strides in a second later, “uh…”

“Movie night!”

Brian glances down at Roger. John notes the blond looks rough but not as bad as he was fearing. Roger has a small smile playing on his lips.

“Let me shower?”

“Of course! We all have to change into our pajamas first.”

Roger ducks his head and wanders towards the bathroom. Freddie jumps over the door and almost manages to bring the entire thing down. He moves to their shared room, leaving Brian and John alone.

“Why?” Brian says a little helplessly.

“Why do you think?” John answers vaguely, “we’ve all be pretty distant lately.”

Brian nods, “I guess we have. How’s that set up?”

“Four separate cushions, they’re close but there’s enough space to breathe.”

“Okay, I’ll go get changed.”

John waits until Freddie comes back. Fred’s in his most comfortable pair of pajamas and he sees that Brian has the same idea. Roger is still in the shower, so John keeps walking to his room. Freddie already has his pajamas picked out on his bed. If he wasn’t used to it by now, he’d be a touched annoyed. He changes quickly, but swaps out the heavy top for a light gray t-shirt.

Roger is out of the shower as he passes, and John can’t stop himself from leaning on the doorframe.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah. I rushed it.”

John smiles warmly, “you tried though, and that’s what matters.”

Roger grins and then tilts his head, “are Brian and Freddie in the matching pajamas too?”

He looks down again and then remembers that his mom had bought them all a set of heavy pajamas for Christmas after he complained about how drafty the flat got. It had been mortifying handing them the brightly wrapped packages, but Roger tore into his with unrepentant glee. Freddie had equal enthusiasm and Brian took his usual eight minutes to open a gift because he didn’t like tearing the paper. They unanimously declared they loved them.

“I think so.”

Roger ducks back down in his drawer and pops back up with a triumphant ah-ha! He’s holding up a red pair of pants. John smiles and ducks back out of the room, he’ll have to reorganize the blankets to match Roger’s color-coding system.

“I’ll be in the living room.”

“I call dibs on picking the movie!”

“You’ll have to fight Fred over it.”

Somehow Roger gets changed in under twenty seconds and rushes into the living room. John has to jump out of the way or be run over. Brian nearly meets the same fate and yanks the popcorn above his head, so Roger doesn’t head butt it. He meets Brian’s eyes at the indignant screech that comes from Freddie.

“Don’t ruin the fort!” John yells.

He hears a muffled “no promises” but he’s not sure who said it. Brian laughs.

“This is a good thing,” Brian says.

“You don’t think that we need to…” John doesn’t know how to phrase it.

“I think Roger will come to us, we need don’t need make him. Right now, he wants to act like things are normal.”

John steps forward so he can see the living room. He sees a fluffy blond head dip below the fort and hears the rustling of packages. The smile is impossible to fight down, even if he tried.

“He might change things,” Brian continues, “but we’ll let him decide what he wants to be changed.”

“But he can’t ignore it,” John counters.

“He can’t, but forcing it isn’t going to help him. Right now, we should just be four friends watching… I think that’s a Disney princess movie.”

John snorts, “probably.”

“Hurry up!” Freddie calls.

John moves automatically. He crawls under their door and settles on the cushion next to Freddie. Roger rolls away to give Brian an easier place to lay, but it places him on the outside and John figures that’s probably the better place for him to be now. There’s less of a chance of someone accidentally touching him.

Brian valiantly defends his popcorn, but it quickly gets stolen by a tag team of all three of them. Although judging by the lack of protests John figures Brian knew that this would happen or made it for all of them in the first place. Roger presses play on the movie and John is half-heartedly drawn into a movie he’s probably seen ten times before.

They talk over the boring parts, but they’re drawn into the songs, trying to either out sing the person or each other. Freddie usually wins those competitions, but Brian’s calm voice comes close, and no one can touch Roger’s falsetto when he sings the princess’s parts. John judges them on a song by song basis.

Superstitiously he glances at Roger and sees that he’s less tense. There’s a lot (by their standards) of space between him and Brian, and no chance of any accidental touching. He can also see that Roger is making himself smaller than normal, but he looks as happy as he can be. John doesn’t want to be the one to ruin the mood, so he presses his lips together. Maybe he is wrong in thinking that they need to make this a _thing_ and they should let Roger come to them for help. He’s always done so before (granted there was usually several broken cups and a few hurtful words to get to the point) and John doesn’t see why he wouldn’t before.

Freddie gets to pick the second movie, and it’s an animated movie about cats. John’s eyes start drooping and he checks his phone surprised to see that it’s well past one in the morning. Next, to him, Brian’s fallen from his elbows onto his back and is snoring. Roger is still bright-eyed, and it looks like he wants to draw on Brian’s face. Not wanting to be a witness, or worse be caught up in the act, he glances to Freddie who is fully enraptured in the movie.

He shrugs and uses his crossed arms as a pillow. This was probably the plan.

* * *

Roger turns off the TV and then attempts to worm his way out of the corner without anyone waking up. The fort was just the thing he needed, it gave them their own little world to get lost in. That’s what he wanted, but he didn’t know he could have that while still having people with him. He wishes he could fall asleep, surrounded by familiar scents and the cottoned warmth, but the idea still made him itchy.

Once Freddie had fallen asleep, Roger knew that he had to go into his own room. He snags a pillow and the two blankets he was using and then sneaks up to his room. Now alone, the exhaustion hits him like a sack of bricks. Roger curls up on his bed, pleased to see that he still had his quilt, unlike John and Brian. The blankets have just enough residual warmth that he decides to hold them rather than cover with them.

It makes him feel like he’s three again, but in his room, with no witnesses and his eyes closing he can’t bring himself to care.

Funnily enough, it’s the birds chirping that wake him. Roger blinks up at the familiar ceiling. He swallows when he remembered he abandoned his friends in the living room. They’re making breakfast if he were to judge by the smells wafting into the room. As he stands, he grimaces, so far his friends haven’t made a big deal about his new…idiosyncrasies but they spent all of that time building the fort for him.

Might as well apologize and steal a piece of John’s toast. Slowly he walks towards the kitchen. It sounds like Brian and John are arguing, encouraged by Freddie. Roger notes that he doesn’t sound angry, so he figures its safe to enter. There’s an impressive spread of food (Freddie’s mom must’ve dropped by and left the fruit and bread because they didn’t have any of that yesterday morning), and Roger’s stomach growls. He’s surprised when he realizes that this is the first time he’s had an actual appetite in a week. He must’ve been skipping food on accident.

Roger notes that should monitor that so he doesn’t skip too many meals, or Brian is going to hover or worse John will notice and tell Brian then _both_ of them will hover. It’s nice that they care, but he is an adult.

“Sleeping beauty deigns to grace us with his presence!” Freddie grins.

The argument cuts off.

“Morning, Rog.”

“Good morning, Roger.”

He waits for the questions to come about why he hadn’t stayed with them.

“Do you want tea or coffee?” John asks.

“Uh, coffee?” Roger sits down next to Freddie who immediately launches into his plans for the day.

John sets a mug in front of him along with the sugar and creamer. Brian slides him a plate laden with fruits and waffles. Roger isn’t surprised that he has to serve himself his own bacon, but he wonders if Brian _had_ noticed his lack of appetite after all. Instead of waiting for questions he digs into the plate in front of him.

“Mary isn’t going to be able to come today, she’s helping restock today,” Freddie rattles off, “and I do need a second opinion.”

“Don’t you routinely say we have horrible fashion senses?” John asks with a raised eyebrow.

“You do! However, with proper tutoring, you can at least become advisors to me and my tastes.”

“Truly a high honor,” Brian mutters.

Roger chuckles.

“Fine. Rog, do you want to come along?”

He raises his eyes in thought. There’s homework he’s been neglecting, but he does need to replace the jacket he…lost. A shutter wracks his body at the thought and ends up shaking his head.

“Not much in the mood, sorry Fred.”

Freddie huffs, but for once doesn’t push. Roger wonders if he’s always going to have reactions like that. Maybe he _should_ use the school’s counseling office, and then he shakes his head. He’s getting along nicely, and if he starts slipping. Well, he figures that he has three people to catch him. The thought makes him smile.

John steals a piece of cantaloupe from his plate as Roger reaches for the bacon.

“Oh, Brian,” Roger calls softly, “can you help me with some of the equations on my bio lab? I can’t figure out why I’m getting the numbers I am.”

“We can take a look at it after breakfast.”

John perks up, “if you’re looking over work, mind taking a peek at my 314 homework?”

“Is that your physics class?”

“Yeah.”

Freddie sighs dramatically and slumps down on the table, “fine! If you’re all going to be dreadfully boring, I’ll stay in and make sure you still remember to have fun.”

Brian pats Freddie on the back, “we thank you for your sacrifice.”

John snickers.

Roger’s smile widens. He wouldn’t change these mornings for the world. No matter what life throws at them, so long as they have each other they’ll be fine.

_He’ll_ be fine.

Queen is his family, and they won’t let him fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always leave your thoughts and comments below! (I promise I reread all of them like 10 times. I love you all).  
> Be on the lookout for the epilogue! Come yell at me @sammyspreadyourwings on tumblr.   
> Eighth Notes is taking over Tuesday updates for those of you following that one.  
> More shameless self-promotion: Melancholy Hopes, These Sleepless Nights all your band OT4 needs or a hell of a lot of angst. Whatever floats your boat!  
> Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/17449007#main


	14. Epilogue: Though You're Many Years Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a hell of a ride. Thank you all for reading and enjoying this story. I'm glad it gained as much interest as it has! Special thanks to my readers who commented on every chapter, it made my day to see you come back against and again, and an additional special thanks goes out to anyone who commented!  
> With no further ado, the end of Rock and Roll and Best Friends, enjoy!

John thinks he’s halfway through his third drink, might be his fifth. More if he counts the few he had before and during the show. The after party is great because people just hand him drinks after congratulating him on a good performance. If this is what the rest of his time in the spotlight is going to be like, then he doesn’t know why he had the hesitation in the first place.

He’s happily drunk but missing his friends. Freddie is in the middle of a crowd, and John’s had enough random people for today. Brian is farther gone than he is, mostly passed out in one of the chairs in the corner. Which means that Roger is his only hope for some sort of companionship. He looks for a blond head and then frowns when he can’t tell them apart. Rather, he can’t find Roger’s shade of blond in the crowd.

Another drink is shoved into his hand and a quick sniff tells him its gin and something. He downs it quickly and realizes he really needs to piss. Roger can wait for him for a minute. John stumbles over one of Brian’s ridiculous clogs, and why is it across the room from the man? Feeling helpful, he launches it back in the direction he saw Brian passed out in.

Apparently, he’s made a wrong turn somewhere, because he’s in an area that looks like it’s more used for hookups than a bathroom. John presses on feeling like he’s going in the right direction. He’s about to turn another corner when he hears a very familiar pitchy voice. John smiles, excited to have found his friend. Another deeper voice cuts across his ears. So, Roger’s found a hookup, which isn’t surprising.

His head clears immediately when he hears the sharp “no!” from Roger. John stumbles down the hallway and finds a little corner that would be missed by anyone not looking for it. Not that John knew that it would be there, but he’s more alert than an average person (a lie, but right now he feels it). All he’s doing is checking on Roger.

“C’mon on doll it’ll be good,” the voice says.

John sways towards the pair. If Roger didn’t want him here, then he’d be shooed off and John can be content in knowing that his friend his fine.

“Rooooooooger,” John calls.

He hears a grunt and Roger’s blue eyes catch his.

“John!”

John isn’t sure what the tone means, but he knows that he doesn’t sound hostile or annoyed. Roger squirms away from the person and presses against John. He immediately puts himself between Roger and the other person.

Roger’s hands are fisted in his coat, “sorry, but I really should get John somewhere to lay down. Looks like he’s about to pass out.”

That’s probably a fair statement, but he’s trying to piece things together. Roger whisks them away with a surety that John knows Roger couldn’t fake. He doesn’t lean into the touch as much as he wants to. The blond is strung tightly, and it feels like he’s holding a livewire without knowing when the next spark is coming.

Roger drags him into another alcove, which turns out to be a window bench. His eyes are darting behind him as though he expected to be followed.

“Rog, you’re safe,” John soothes.

At least Roger’s eyes are on him now.

“Hey, you’re with me, nothing is going to happen to you.”

“Deaks, you’re drunker than I am,” Roger snorts, “you’re not going to do much but sway angrily.”

John shrugs, “still. Nothing will happen.”

Roger smiles slightly, “what do you say about getting out of here and going back to the hotel.”

“Good idea. We should probably drag Brian along.”

“Not Freddie?”

“Fred too!” He grins at his next brilliant idea, “we can order pizza and _a lot_ of breadsticks. Like. So many.”

His smile widens at Roger’s laugh, which is loud and bright. There’s an edge of stress to his eyes, and John wants to rub it away. They might be a year and a few months from that awful Saturday night, but Roger gets jumpy about touching still. Probably always will. Roger entangles their fingers and tugs gently.

“Let’s go get the others and order a lot of breadsticks.”

They head back into the main room where the party is still going. Brian is in the same chair, but he looks like he’ll fall out of it any second. John stays close to Roger as they navigate the room. He laughs as Roger leans down and blows into Brian’s ear. The guitarist jumps, but he’s drunk and his usually graceful movements are awkward.

“Wha, Rog?”

“C’mon, let’s go back to the hotel?”

Brian nods. Roger has to drop John’s hand to help support Brian who is far more unstable. Freddie materializes in front of them (John is happy to figure out that he rarely sneaks up on Roger anymore).

“Where are you taking our dear drunk guitarist?”

“Back to the hotel. We’re going to order food,” Roger answers.

“And eat the expensive snacks on top of the mini-fridge,” John tilts forward.

Freddie glances at them and then back to the party and then back to them. He smiles wider than he usually would in a room full of strangers.

“Okay. Sounds good.”

They all stumble out and towards the car that’s been designated to wait for them. John gets in first and pulls a sluggish Brian in with him. Roger climbs in an takes the seat across from him with Freddie following, after saying goodbye to a few fans who caught them on their way out. Freddie watches the city past with rapt attention, as though he’s memorizing it and Brian has fallen asleep (or passed out). John closes his eyes when he feels a soft nudge against his shin.

“Thank you.”

He opens his eyes to see a reserved Roger glancing out of the window, “no need to thank me. I’ll always have your back.”

* * *

The walls are thin. Roger shivers as another cold draft gusts over him. He doesn’t mind that so much, he can bury himself in the old quilt or pull on another sweater, but he can’t settle down because he can hear both Freddie and Brian as they sleep. There’s either always a creak or a snore, and it’s grating on Roger’s last nerves. If it were one or the other he could handle it, but both of them is proving to be too difficult.

He wants to sleep because he wants to contribute to tomorrow’s brainstorming session with the album. This is _the_ album if they can’t make it work, they’re done. A flash in musical history. Roger doesn’t know what will happen to them if the band fails, they’ve been his anchors for almost five years now if they drift apart all Roger will have to show for their time is a barely achieved degree in biology and clothes that weren’t originally his in the closet.

That can’t happen to them. Brian’s bed squeaks again. Roger shoved out of his bed and down the stairs before he’s even thinking about what idea he has in mind. The living room is blissfully empty, but then he hears a cough that undoubtedly comes from Paul somewhere on this floor. He doesn’t even consider sleeping on the same floor as that man, Roger’s skin crawls whenever he’s in the vicinity. A few seconds later he finds the staircase that leads to John’s room.

It’s not the solitude he was looking for, but it’s _John_ who is a hundred times better company than his own thoughts. He creeps down the steps, wincing at every whine the wood gives under his weight. Truthfully, he’s not surprised when he makes out John’s tired glare in the light but he is guilty. There isn’t a way to get into John’s room without waking the man up.

“Roger?” John says, and he hears the annoyance bleed through the tone.

He almost goes back up the stairs and wants to pretend like this never happened.

“Is something wrong?”

Roger nods and then realizes he should probably use words, “I can’t sleep. Thinking too much, too much noise, too many people.”

John shifts in bed and Roger sees his form rise. He sees the extended hand and grabs it gratefully. They make their way silently to the bed where John beckons him to sit down.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. Not right now,” Roger shakes his head, “I just want to sleep.”

“Okay,” John says.

He doesn’t know if he can make the offer without thinking he’ll be refused. John values sleep more than anyone else he’s known. Roger bites his lip.

“Rog, do you want to sleep down here tonight?”

“Yes, please. If it’s not too much to ask.”

“Course it isn’t. Might be a tight fit,” John maneuvers so that he’s back under the covers and pressed against the back wall. He holds open the sheets.

Roger practically dives under the blankets. Once John has settled Roger presses closer so he doesn’t feel like he’s going to fall off the bed. The room warms up quickly for him between the blankets and the second body. He’s almost instantly sleeping. John shifts a little more so there’s less chance of accidental touching.

“I hope Brian isn’t going to be mad I stole his cuddling partner.”

“He’ll get over it.”

John grins and shifts again. Roger can tell that he’s not exactly comfortable being so rigidly pressed against the wall. He sighs and considers the alternative and then shakes his head.

“We can actually cuddle you know,” Roger says softly giving both of them an out.

Hesitantly John wraps an arm around his torso and pulls himself closer to Roger. Roger sinks into the warmth and he’s not sure what John’s reply is. It’s getting easier for him to get comfortable with people touching him again. John’s been the best at remembering to ask about contact or tell him exactly why and where he’s touching because it’s unavoidable. He still hates that his body tenses when Freddie swings an arm around his shoulders or places a hand on his back or when he freaks out during Brian and his play wrestling or couch cuddling sessions.

“Hush. Can’t solve the world’s problems in a night. Sleep.”

So, Roger does.

* * *

Another good show meant another epic after party. He lost track of his bandmates thirty minutes after the introductory toasts. Roger isn’t going to complain, there’s more than enough booze and entertainment that he can occupy himself with. In fact, he’s thinking that he should indulge more considering he nailed his drum solos and had to take over for Fred during the high notes to help give his voice a rest.

He hesitates at the shot glass shoved in his hands and then shrugs. It’s about time they all got plastered at a party together. Roger downs it and follows it with a second one quickly. Happy that the buzz sets in quickly, he wanders around the room, making small talk with some of the roadies and flirting with a few groups of girls. They have to get up reasonably early, and he doesn’t feel like having to chance anyone out of his room and then listen to the comments from his bandmates the rest of the day.

He spots John in a corner happily necking with some woman. Roger passes by closely and then wolf-whistles. John flips him off without breaking contact with the girl. It means the bassist is in a good mood and somehow beating them all in getting plastered. Well, he’s more drunk than Roger currently is, which causes Roger to grab a flute of champagne (and spares a moment to wonder how bad or sick he’ll be with mixing drinks) and downs it. There’s no time for regrets yet.

Roger wanders around until he finds Brian. He sneaks under the man’s arm whose talking with one of their roadies about the setup tonight (and to be fair, the pyrotechnics did get a little too close to his kit and Deaky). Brian raises an eyebrow but doesn’t stop his conversation. So far Deaky is still winning at getting drunk the fastest, and if he has to bet Brian is the soberest. Roger wonders where Freddie’s gone off to.

Another shot distracts him and he’s content against Brian’s warm body. He even manages to get Brian to drink from a wine glass that he’s also somehow procured (being a rock star at parties is great. They just give you booze). Eventually, the roadie stumbles off and Brian sighs.

“They haven’t understood a word of what I said.”

“Most people usually don’t,” Roger giggles.

“How drunk are you?”

“Not enough. Neither are you.”

Brian rolls his eyes, “there has to be one sober maniac in this group.”

Roger pouts, “do one shot with me and then I’ll leave you alone.”

“Okay.”

With that decided, Roger tugs Brian along to the drink table. Since he already knows he’s going to feel like death tomorrow morning, he has the bartender prep two shots of tequila. Brian looks at the glass with a look as though it’s a man wielding a knife.

“It won’t bite.”

“Sure, it won’t.”

They toast and knock back the shots. Roger struggles to suck on the lime while laughing Brian’s immediate look of regret. He stumbles back with the sudden instability of the alcohol catching up and he lands on his ass. It only makes Roger laugh more. Brian’s warm laugh joins his, and Roger really wishes he could see what kind of face the bartender is making. Eventually, Brian gets himself under control enough to pull Roger back to his feet.

Roger sways into his touch, “mm gonna find Fred.”

“Okay.”

He wanders through the venue, unsurprised to see Deaky with another cup full of something and bouncing his way back to where he probably left his interest of the night. Roger ducks under someone and then frowns when he finds himself outside. It’s late in the year, but the cool breeze feels nice against his face without making him freeze. Roger closes his eyes, which is a bad choice considering he’s dizzy and he stumbles back.

There are arms around him suddenly. He goes still for a second, worried that this person was going to try something. It’s that thought that spurs him into action. Roger yelps and pushes away from the person, delivering a sharp jab with his elbow and the falling down the two steps and onto his back.

“Roger!”

_Oh._ It was Freddie. The singer recovered faster, and Roger is pretty sure because that it was because of the angle and the not the fact that his elbow wasn’t hard enough, thank you very much. He blinks up. Freddie leans closer into his space.

“Are you alright dear?”

His back ached, but his heart rate is slowly declining, “yeah. Sorry. Surprised me is all.”

“I should know better, must’ve had too much to drink.”

“It’s okay. I’ve been doing better recently.”

Freddie shakes his head, “that’s no excuse I should’ve called out or asked first.”

Roger grips Freddie’s face in his hands, “Freddie. I’m fine. I might prefer if you warn me, but sometimes it’s not practical. It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m okay. Okay?”

“I’m sure that sentence would make sense if I weren’t seeing two of you.”

He snorts and pulls Freddie into a hug. It’s the best way to reassure the singer of things, and Roger really doesn’t mind because it was Freddie. The band gets free passes on things that he would usually demand of other people.

“If I wake up with a backache, you have to bring me breakfast in bed and then explain it to Brian why I can’t perform.”

Freddie pulls away from the hug, or so Roger thinks until his head is placed against Freddie’s chest, “Roger Taylor? Miss a performance?”

Roger pulls away just to stick out his tongue, “it’s been known to happen.”

“Not for a long time.”

He buries himself back in the warm embrace, “I’m really okay, you know.”

“Hm,” Freddie is playing with his hair, “doesn’t mean I can’t look out for you.”

* * *

Freddie realizes that haven’t seen Roger all day around dinner. Granted they don’t live together anymore (according to Veronica the paper can say one thing, but reality being completely different upon waking up to Queen in her kitchen for the fourth time in one week, Veronica is a wonderful sport about the entire thing), but they rarely don’t go a day without seeing each other. John claims Brian would get withdrawals, and politely doesn’t comment on the fact that it’s practically the truth with Freddie.

Not to alarm the other two he doesn’t blurt out his observation right away. It’s rare, but they sometimes don’t meet up because of previous obligations. He doesn’t remember Roger say that he was busy today, but then again, he might not have been paying attention. Besides Brian isn’t a nervous wreck, so he assumes everything is fine. Freddie shrugs away his concern for the time being and makes a promise to call Roger once he gets home (or in the morning if it’s insanely late).

Two hours and one pleasant buzz later he leaves Brian in the care of Deaky because he’s in a melancholy drunk mood and John didn’t like the idea of sending Brian stumbling into the dark. They may have come a long way from a split flat in a questionably safe part of town, but that habit is still engrained in them. Queen first and then everyone else, although he figures they should amend it to family first (it makes very little difference in the long run).

He saunters down the sidewalk. There’s no one creeping the alleyway of the new upscale neighborhood that Deaky is calling his own. Freddie likes the feeling of safety, and then he grimaces as a wet newspaper smacks against his body. London’s waste isn’t exactly what he wants touching him at some odd hour at night. A quick shake of his foot removes the debris, but he does look down to see what exactly touched his body.

It’s a tabloid magazine, one of the more popular ones but still mostly lies and bottom celebrity gossip. He doesn’t care about until he realizes who is on Page One. Freddie crouches down to get a better look (he’s not touching _that),_ he knows those stunning blue eyes and almost laughs. Of course, Roger ends up in the tabloids, the first of them to get the front page (he has a distinct feeling that he’s not going to be the last. His joy vanishes when he reads the text.

**_ROGER TAYLOR, PARTY BOY OF QUEEN, SLEEPS WITH RECORD EXECUTIVES_ **

_How no talent band Queen really got their fame, and how Party Boy Taylor finally came clean. Full Story on page 9._

Freddie doesn’t know how to process the words. Then he’s not sure what part to be angrier about. The fact that they brought up Roger’s sex life which has always been touchy or that they implied Queen wasn’t talented. It’s the former, he decides after another second, the critics have always rallied against their success (it still stings, how many times do they have to get a gold disc and sell out stadiums). Then he reads the date the article was printed.

He turns away from his route home and the one that will take him to Roger’s flat. The reason why Roger hadn’t joined them today is clear. To think that they hadn’t known because they hadn’t paid much attention to the bad press. Roger likes to because sometimes it’s funny and other times he catches something that’s blatantly disrespectful and it gives him an excuse to write scathing letters. John calls it a waste of time while Brian thinks its cathartic, Freddie usually finds the response hilarious because Roger always reminds people that he did have a biology degree and can understand the highbrow language.

It takes him less than twelve minutes to get to Roger’s flat, and he may have been speed walking. He takes the steps leading up to the flat two at a time and knocks loudly and quickly. Out of habit, it’s an uneven rhythm because he’s used to annoying Roger into opening the door. Another person might consider the time and figure that Roger is asleep but Freddie knows how he gets when he’s in one of his moods.

_“She called me a whore,” Roger tells him once when they’re hiding out on ridge farm._

_Freddie doesn’t have to ask who he’s referring to, “we’re all musical prostitutes, but not whores. Never that. You must believe it._

_Roger looked at him with watery eyes and a smile._

He knocks louder and with more tempo until finally, the door swings open. Roger’s drawn himself up to his full height, but the puffy eyes and ashy complexion ruin any intimidation factor he might have had. Roger squints and then his eyes widen.

“What the hell are you doing here, Fred?”

“I missed you, so I simply had to see you.”

Roger looks doubtful, “well now you’ve seen me.”

Freddie places a hand on the door. He doesn’t want to make Roger feel pressured by his presence, but he wants the other to know that he is determined about his mission. Roger eyes the hand and then tilts his head. Freddie knows he’s being considered again, and he’s happy when it takes less time than usual. Roger is interesting because it’s not so much that a person always has his trust, but rather that a person has to keep earning his trust.

“Okay.”

Roger steps to the side and lets Freddie in. Freddie kicks the door close and after a second of hesitation to let Roger pull away, he tugs the blond into the living room. He marches around the flat grabbing as many blankets as he can find before draping them in cacophonous patterns on the couch. As soon as he’s layered the last one, he sits down, and Roger immediately crawls over to him. Freddie tugs on the right one and then they’re successfully cocooned in a way that they have the weight of the blanket but won’t overheat after half an hour.

Freddie doesn’t ask any questions. He doesn’t need Roger to spin excuses about why they’re wrong about that situation but they’re right about him sleeping around. None of them are exactly celibate, and Freddie hates that they pick Roger to wage their moral war on. It simply isn’t fair. Roger draws himself closer and it shakes Freddie out of the anger that’s pooling in the back of his head.

“Hm, and you were going to turn me away.”

“Never,” Roger says, and it’s a little too close to the heart.

Freddie smiles, “well, I guess you’ll have to deal with me barging into your flat at all hours of the night.”

“There are worse things,” Roger murmurs sleepily, “bring Deak and Bri next time.”

“Are you saying I’m not enough for you?”

“It’s always better when it’s the four of us.”

He can’t exactly argue against that logic. Once Roger is soundly asleep (and drooling it’s adorably disgusting so he lets it slide) Freddie digs out his phone which had been steadily vibrating since he left John’s flat.

> _Baby Disco Deaky(ling) <3: _ **_ROGER TAYLOR, PARTY BOY OF QUEEN, SLEEPS WITH RECORD EXECUTIVES_**
> 
> _Baby Disco Deaky(ling) <3: Have you seen this rubbish?_
> 
> _Baby Disco Deaky(ling) <3: You don’t think Roger has seen it?_
> 
> _He has. I’m couch cuddling with him now._
> 
> _Baby Disco Deaky(ling) <3: Hell. Can’t they leave us alone?_
> 
> _The press is always like this._
> 
> _Baby Disco Deaky(ling) <3: Doesn’t mean I have to like it._
> 
> _Is Brian asleep?_
> 
> _Baby_ _Disco Deaky(ling) <3: Mostly._
> 
> _There’s room on Roger’s couch if you two can manage to come over without waking him._
> 
> _Baby Disco Deaky(ling) <3: We’ll be there soon._

Roger stirs and blinks at the light in the otherwise dark room.

“Sleep,” he grumbles and sticks his nose deeper into Freddie’s side.

“Bri and Deaky are coming over.”

He feels this excitement travel through Roger’s body, “good. Missed them.”

“You’ve only been away for a day.”

“Is a long time, Fred.”

“We’ve been together for a long time,” Freddie counters, “and we’ll probably still be together too many years in the future.”

“Good.”

* * *

Brian hears the frantic knocking before he’s fully awake. For a second, he thinks that it’s the soft rolling thunder from the storm expected to move in this morning. It doesn’t stop and the speed picks up. He’s alone in his flat, and glad of it because the knocking is sure to wake the dead, or at least the elderly couple next door.

The knocking breaks and Brian waits to see if it picks up again when he hears a thud against the door. Fearing that someone ran to his door for help, he picks up his pace, dropping the robe he was preparing to slip on, He bolts to the front door and undoes the lock. The first thing that he notices is that it’s begun to rain. He looks down and sees that Roger’s now sprawled in his doorway looking more confused than anything.

There’s a tightness to his face that Brian knows from experience isn’t good. Roger slowly rolls onto his feet and bites his lip. The rain must’ve just started because Roger only has a little dampness on his hair and clothes.

“Roger?”

“Uh, sorry.”

“What happened?”

Roger glances away and Brian superstitiously pulls Roger into his flat. Once the door is closed, they can both relax because Brian knows that nothing can hurt Roger in this flat and Roger because it’s back to a bubble of privacy. He frowns when Roger doesn’t meet his eyes, and his mind starts spinning worst case scenarios.

“I- it’s dumb. I’m sorry for waking you.”

“Something is bothering you. I’d rather help than have you suffer in silence.”

Brian gently pulls Roger towards the kitchen, but Roger shakes his head, so he changes route towards the bedroom. This time there are no complaints from Roger otherwise. They sit on the edge of the bed. Roger worries his lip and Brian worries about Roger.

“I had a nightmare.”

Roger then leans into Brian and with a gentle nudge of his shoulde, Brian gets the hint to lay them down in the bed. Brian can tell that Roger doesn’t want much contact but just the reassurance that he’s not alone, so he keeps his touches strictly necessary and as light as he can manage.

“Have you heard from Freddie?”

Brian raises an eyebrow. He expected Roger to be the last one to ask about Fred. It’s unfair he knows, but Roger took it personally when Freddie brushed off his warnings about his current relationship being unhealthy.

“No.”

“Has anyone?”

“I don’t think so.”

Roger’s hand rolls into a fist on Brian’s chest. Brian isn’t entirely sure where Roger’s emotions are going, so he braces for a tirade. Roger starts trembling and Brian gapes, because when Roger trembles that usually means-

“What’s happening with him?”

The voice is whisper thin.

“What did we do that… chased him away? No one’s going to be looking out for him…” Roger looks up with glassy eyes, “what if _something_ happens to him and no one cares?”

Brian taps a minor rhythm against Roger’s spine. It’s the same thought he’s been having since the fight. He knows if he asked John he’d get the same response. When they had no one to look out for them back when they were four college boys with barely a hundred pounds between them, they had each other. To not have one of them… it tilted the axis. Brian’s mind compares it to a star system, perfectly elliptical orbits until a catastrophic event knocks them one out of orbit. They all suffer from that one event.

“We’ll care. Families fight, Rog. He’ll… he’ll come back.”

“But what if something happens before then?”

“Then we’ll deal with it then. We’re all our own people.”

Roger turns his face deeper into the pillow, “but we’ve always been together.”

It’s a true statement. Brian doesn’t know how to counter it. He wants to say that Freddie will come back, but there’s no guarantee he will beyond fervent hopes. He could tell Roger that to love and loose is better to never have loved at all, but he knows how deeply Roger cares and the immediate response would be to argue against the statement. There’s a small part of him that wants to distract from the situation, but again, Brian knows that won’t help anyone.

“I know, Rog, I know.”

Because if there’s anyone who understands the pain of losing Freddie, it’s him and John. He could call John over and they could cuddle in a pile while they worried.

“I’ll have you always, right Bri?”

That’s an easy reassurance. He knows Roger doesn’t mean it to belittle their bandmates. They knew each other before they knew the passionate Freddie and loving John. It’s the simple truth that like John and Freddie clicked he and Roger clicked.

“Of course, you will,” Brian pushes lightly, “and I’ll always have you?”

“Naturally,” Roger closes his eyes, “and once we stop fighting we’ll always have Freddie and John too.”

Brian can only hope.

* * *

Roger curls up in the corner of the booth. He’s not in much of a celebratory mood, but Brian (surprisingly) dragged him out of his flat. They’re all pretending that it hasn’t been more than two years without hearing anything from Freddie.

Shame because they still had so much music to give the world.

Brian is getting more beer for them. Roger sighs and presses his forehead against the table. He would rather be in his bed wallowing in his own pity. John doesn’t come to these things anymore, after probably out-stubborning Brian. Two years ago, Roger would have laughed at the sight that would have made, but their distance isn’t funny.

Glasses clinking drew his attention to Brian’s hands, “I brought you out so you would stop moping, not to mope in a different venue.”

Roger shrugs and drains half of the bottle, “you’ve been away getting our drinks all night. There’s nothing to do but mope.”

“Can’t help how fast they get my drinks.”

“I can’t believe we’ve toured the world, and people still make us wait,” Roger says it with little heat.

Brian sits across from him, “how’s the solo album doing?”

Roger wipes off a drop of condensation. The solo album had been more about exploring his own sound and making music rather than making it big. He missed creating.

“Well enough. No hits.”

The solo project wasn’t as much fun as he imagined it would be. Roger doesn’t want to know how Freddie is managing to make two back to back. Brian sips at his beer.

“At least it wasn’t a flop.”

Roger shrugs again. His name alone guaranteed the album would sell. It’s the same with Brian and John and Freddie; benefits of being in a world-class rock band. Brian is watching him, hazel eyes picking him apart like data. If they hadn’t been in each other’s pockets for a decade and a half, Roger might be more annoyed.

“Why don’t you call him?”

“What makes you think I haven’t?”

Brian tilts his head.

Roger sighs, “It’s fucking Prenter.”

“You’re going to let him stop you?”

“No,” Roger snorts, “but if he’s the only one answering phones, then there’s not much point. Fred is always indisposed. Don’t care anymore if Fred is going to be able to pull himself away from “work” for a half an hour to talk to one of his best friends.”

“Roger,” Brian frowns.

“Oh, come off it! Fred left us, so either he’s avoiding us, Prenter is telling the truth, or there’s something worse at play.”

“Like Prenter not telling him?”

Roger finds it hard to believe that Freddie would let anyone have that much control of his life, it’s not healthy either way, but he even fought with John about following a schedule why they were on tour. Brian sips his beer again. He doesn’t want to think that they let Prenter get under Freddie’s skin so deeply.

His next statement is cut off by a loud “leave me alone!”’

He’s on his feet in seconds and Brian behind him. A man who would tower over Brian is crowding a girl into a wall. White-hot anger floods his veins. Roger is moving faster than he can think things through.

“Is there a problem?” His tone is more casual than he thought he could manage.

The man sneers, “bugger off.”

The girl is trembling, but the man seems indifferent to the fear he’s causing. Roger crosses his arms.

“Mind giving her some space? You’re in public mate.”

Surprisingly the man does. Roger only sees the fist being raised. His face hurts and then the back of his head hurts. The ceiling is spinning. Brian leans over him.

“Roger! Are you okay?”

“Mm,” Roger blinks away the stars. His eye really hurts.

“Haven’t been punched in a while.”

“Are you complaining about that?”

Roger grins, “was getting bored.”

Brian rolls his eyes, “maybe take up an activity less damaging to that pretty face of yours?”

“You think I’m pretty?”

“I think you’re concussed.”

“Probably,” Roger hums.

The room is still spinning and his stomach feels queasy. His eye is starting to hurt a lot. He doesn’t think it’s the beer causing everything, he only had two.

“Freddie doesn’t answer my texts,” he isn’t sure why he said that, “or my messages on twitter or facebook or Instagram.”

Roger leans into the hand Brian puts on his head, “let’s get you back to my flat.”

He groans when Brian pulls him from the ground. His stomach flips and he staggers into Brian’s chest. Weird lights flash across his vision. He doesn’t remember this pub having a disco ball.

“Or maybe the hospital.”

It sounds like a good idea. He doesn’t what to go through, they’d have to drive, and Brian is comfortable. Also, he doesn’t think his stomach would survive the jostling. Brian guides him out of the pub. The lowlight of the street lights is so much better than the lights inside. Oh. His vision is going double.

That’s probably not a good sign.

Roger vomits on the sidewalk.

“Yep, hospital.”

“Nooo.”

“Roger, please.”

Brian loops an arm around his waist. Roger automatically drapes his arm over Brian’s shoulder. He leans heavily against Brian and closes his eyes.

“I’m calling John.”

“Don’t want to get sick in his car.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

The ground pitches as they stand still. The headache intensifies and it feels like his skull is about to split open. Roger whines in pain.

“Hey, John. Yeah, we’re still out. The usual place. Can you come to get us? Roger was hit. He’s standing but it doesn’t look good. Thanks.”

John arrives ten minutes later. Roger has kept his eyes close, but Brian gently jostles him every so often to keep him awake. He doesn’t like it, but he understands why.

“I leave you two alone for five minutes.”

Roger whines at the volume of John’s voice. He feels fingers prod his face and he cracks open one eye (he tries for both but that hurts worse) to peer at John.

“I missed you!”

“You saw me last week.”

Brian detangles himself from Roger, and based on the snippet of conversation he’s hearing, they’re trying to get him into the car. After much jostling and whining, Roger has his head in Brian’s lap. The guitarist’s longs fingers run through his hair, it’s a gentle counterpoint to the throbbing pain. John is quiet as he drives, but he’s also making very smooth turns and stops.

Roger appreciates it. They’re missing something.

“He hit his head when he fell?”

“His eyes weren’t focusing at all. He’s barely opened them.”

“The right eye is swollen shut.”

That explained the blurriness after the punch, he thinks. Brian accidentally brushes against the side of his face and he yelps. Roger feels the car speed up.

He doesn’t want to get out of the car when it pulls to a stop at what he presumes is the hospital. Brian takes care of checking him in. It takes him several (it’s only an hour, but Roger isn’t paying attention to much besides the pain which is getting worse _what the hell?)_ hour to be seen. They give him painkillers help, once they examine him, and his stomach stops twisting. The doctors probably gave him something for that too.

Thank god Brian and John know what’s happening with him. There was a reason he made them medical proxies.

Doctor Emmerson (John told him her name) explains things once his head is clear enough to understand things, “You have a concussion, mild and the symptoms should be gone by the end of the week. No heavy exertion or physical activity until then, and perhaps longer.”

“Does drumming count?”

“With how you drum, Mr. Taylor, yes.”

John snorts. Roger tries to not look too heartbroken.

“The more serious matter is your vision,” Doctor Emmerson says, “when you were struck, it damaged your eye. At the minimum, you’ll need reading glasses and perhaps a prescription. Schedule an appointment with your optometrist for two weeks for their determination.”

It’s relieving. All Roger has been hearing for the past twelve hours is worries about his eye. It sucks, but he's worried that he was about to go blind.

“Again, I leave you alone for five minutes,” John jokes after Doctor Emmerson leaves.

Roger harrumphs, “at least this eye patch makes me look hot?”

John looks away.

“I’ll be right back,” Brian says.

About four minutes later Brian reenters. Roger tilts his head as he sees Brian looking at something intently on his phone. The phone his handed to him and he squints at the screen (that hurts, and the doctor said he should be looking at screens).

“Hm, I don’t think the pirate life is the one for you.”

“Freddie!”

Freddie smiles. Roger notes with some concern that he looks tired and pale. All he wants to do is wrap Freddie in a hug and both of them can sleep off their woes. They aren’t physically together now, but he doesn’t care (currently).

Queen will always have each other’s back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always leave your thoughts and comments below. I'd like to reiterate that I very much appreciate every single one of my readers! I hope you enjoyed this as much as I liked writing it. I may come back to this verse with one-shots that explain some not so hidden details in the story or just more dumb boys living together. We'll see if I can actually get further ahead in Eighth Notes (oh btw, that's updated, and it's a solid read). Come shoot the shit with me on tumblr @sammyspreadyourwings!  
> Thank you all again!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Leave your thoughts or wishes below in the comments! See you next time as I update sporadically. I'm about to do a 25 fic challenge for December, so I might be dead by the end of it!  
> Unrelated, but I also wrote https://archiveofourown.org/works/16697596 so. Yeea.


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